


the godlike kind

by rowenabane



Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Knights - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24189928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowenabane/pseuds/rowenabane
Summary: “Your hair has gone almost white,” he says quietly, brushing the hair away from Kun’s face. He wonders if Kun ever saw this moment, wonders if there was anything he could have done to avoid it.  “What happened to you?”Kun smiles sadly, the expression one that Ten remembers better than his own name. “You did.”
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Qian Kun
Comments: 57
Kudos: 202





	1. the fool

**Author's Note:**

> after many, many months of tears the redacted kunten au is finally here! special thanks to [riah](https://twitter.com/see_thevision) for doing an excellent job as a beta and [bunnie](https://twitter.com/bunnieju) for being not just an amazing beta and source of support but also a constant reminder that i Can Be Killed….Eventually.  
> Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoy!

Ten is not sure where this story starts. It does not have a beginning, at least not one that he can remember. Maybe he is in the middle. Maybe it is just ending and all he can do is conclude it.

He wakes up on a battlefield. He knows it right away—he smells blood and burning and the sick sourness of metal lying underneath it all, like a current.

The sun is high in the sky and Ten gets the dim feeling that it shouldn't be, that it is all just a trick of the light. He squints at it, watching birds circle the field. Everything is so still and quiet as he sits up that it seems he's alone. He's not alone. His companions are all corpses in armor.

Ten hears the clanging of metal and feels a pressure on his chest, and when he looks down he sees his chest plate is almost caved in, a large dent right in the center. He peels it off, twisting his neck.

The sun is high in the sky, but the clouds are all gray. Ten stands and finds a sword in his hand, the bright sheen dampened by red. The image shimmers, as if this is a dream, as if he has been dreaming the entire time.

 _Ten,_ someone whispers softly. _Look_.

Maybe the story starts here. 

Or, maybe, it starts _here_ :

♛

The king of the Northlands had ten sons, each to a different woman. 

The first was to be an heir, the second a thoughtful guide to the kingdom.

The rest were sons without legitimacy, sons who bore no other title than that of sons, who were allowed to live in the palace under the watchful eye of their father.

The last son of the King was born to a dying mother. Her last breaths were not strong enough to give him a name, and so no true name was given to him.

Instead, the entire palace called him Ten.

…

"You're slow!" Kun says laughing, wooden stick clenched in his tiny hands. His hair is a tousled mess on his head, the same dark brown color as his eyes. They look a little bit similar—dark hair, dark eyes, and young, young, young. "You can't beat me!"

Ten swings his stick at Kun and the only sound is that of wood bouncing off wood and laughter that rings over the hills. Summer fills the air with its brightness, the grass green and dry beneath their feet.

Ten sticks his tongue out at Kun just as he jabs him in the shoulder. The other jumps back.

"You're the worst knight ever," Ten says, but he is smiling. 

"Well if _I'm_ the worst knight, you must be the most dreadful knight in the whole kingdom!"

The sound of clattering wood fills the field once more, and from a distance one can barely make out the figures of two young boys, both with dark hair and smiling faces. 

This is how fate works: two boys are born less than a month apart in a palace that does not pay them too much attention. They are two boys whose best companion is each other; they are two boys with the privilege of noble birth but with no title to their name.

This is how fate works: two boys play with sticks in a field, but do not pretend to be kings.

…

Ten is seven years old when he learns that Kun's father has gone out into the Borderlands and now cannot be found. Kun tells him this bluntly as he breaks sticks in the field, snapping them over his knees.

"But I’m sure he'll come home," Kun says, voice hopeful. "He has to, doesn't he? What happens if he doesn't?"

Ten thinks of the man he calls father, a distant figure on a throne. He thinks of words he has heard whispered in the halls of the palace, quiet and hurried: _insurrection, attack, war_.

“I hope he comes home,” Ten says, thinking about a fatherly touch he never experienced, a mother he never knew. “I don’t want you to be sad.”

When Kun speaks it is with wisdom beyond his years. “I don’t want to be sad either.”

…

Consider this: Kun’s father does not come home. Kun becomes a ward of the palace, a child with no real place but who lives in the palace all the same. He is, in almost every way, Kun’s brother. Ten realizes much later that he can recall Kun’s name easier than his own. This is a skill that comes in handy later. 

Ten cannot tell the future. That’s okay. He knows he has Kun by his side and even though they are just kids, really, just kids who spend too much time in the forest and the fields, he knows that this is what he wants. A companion. Someone who will yell at him and smile at him and sometimes call him an idiot. That is what Ten wants, and if his eleven-year-old self could see the future this is exactly what he would want it to look like: two boys, who do not pretend to be kings, playing with sticks in a field.

…

“Come on,” Taeil says, straightening Ten’s collar. “You can’t go out there looking like that.”

“I can and I will,” Ten says, tugging at the sleeves of his ceremonial robe. It is gray, plain, a ruby red rose stitched over the heart. “No one cares what I look like. Everyone will be looking at _you_.”

Taeil smiles, just 16 and already a model of a brother. His own robes are covered with painted roses, red and black and purple. His hair is neatly parted, and Ten knows that later a small crown will rest there, a miniature of the one he will someday bear. He has never been unkind to Ten, and that in itself is a virtue.

“I’m a little nervous,” Taeil says. “I don’t know if I’m really ready to be the crown prince.”

“Come on,” Ten says, glancing past Taeil to see Kun waving at him from the other side of the room. “You were _born_ for this.”

Born, or in other words, fated. Ten watches his oldest brother turn and leave and feels a twinge in his heart as he sees his father, the King, wrap an arm around Taeil and whisper something to him. He watches Taeil nod and looks away.

“You look unhappy,” Kun says. His ceremonial robes have the color of the Knights printed all over them, the deepest red woven into lines and triangles. The fabric is a deep blue, almost black, and it makes Kun’s eyes sparkle against his skin. Kun reaches up to adjust his collar.

“I’m not sad,” Ten says. “Just uncomfortable. These robes are _heavy.”_

Kun laughs. Ten still does not want to be king.

…

They grow up quickly, like all boys do. It seems one second they are swinging sticks at each other and the next they are swinging dulled swords, the metal clanging out around them loudly in the courtyard.

Sometimes it does not feel like they have known each other for 14 years. Sometimes it feels like they’ve known each other forever.

Kun ducks and taps his sword against Ten’s ribs lightly, the skilled hit stinging. Ten wonders if he takes after his father, and then remembers that neither of them would really know. 

“That’s five,” Kun says, breathing heavily. He smiles at Ten, bent slightly with his hand resting on his thigh. “I’m a little slow today.”

Ten gives him an exasperated look, chest heaving. “Slow? It took you less than ten minutes!”

Kun shrugs, but his eyes glitter. “Well, it usually only takes me less than seven.”

Ten lifts his own practice sword, the metal dull and scratched all along the blade. “Let’s do it again, then.” He raises an eyebrow. “Unless, of course, you’re too tired.”

Kun’s blade swings over and upwards and Ten has scarcely enough time to block it with his own, metal screeching against metal. Kun grins.

“Maybe you’re the one who’s too tired,” he jokes, smile as brilliant as the sun. Ten blinks at that, at the way his own heart pauses even as his muscles move of their own accord. Metal clangs together and they are breathless, young, waiting for the future.

Kun was born to be a knight; it is in his blood, in his eyes, in his heart. Sometimes Ten wonders if he will find his purpose as Kun has, if he will someday be able to glow like Kun does when he talks of his father, of navy blue robes and practice fields. 

The sun sets over green fields, and winter is just a distant memory.

…

Ten remembers the most important day of his life with the type of clarity meant for things that are painful to recall. 

“If you could be anywhere other than here, where would you go?”

Ten watches as Kun pulls dandelions out of the ground, twisting the stems mindlessly around his fingers. He can hear the way the wind whistles between them, the grass swaying. The palace is far in the distance, visible but only if he turns a certain way, only if he looks.

“I don’t know,” Ten says, shrugging. “I’ve never thought about it. Somewhere warm, I guess.”

“I would like to live in a house by the sea,” Kun says wistfully, staring at some point far out in the distance. “I’ve never seen the ocean. I imagine it's beautiful.”

“When we’re Knights we’ll be able to go anywhere,” Ten reminds him. Kun looks up at the clouds, and for a second his eyes perfectly reflect the crystal blue sky.

“I hope so,” he says softly.

 _This is important,_ Ten’s mind whispers. _You must remember this._

Ten sits up from where he is lying on the grass, all gangly limbs and half-formed potential. They are both 17, young and hopeful, unsure of the future. 

“If for some reason we don’t become Knights, I promise we’ll go anyway,” Ten says, placing a hand solemnly over his heart. “We can live in a hut and go fishing and swimming all day, and if the Southern Isles attack us we can beat them up.”

Kun laughs and pushes him. Ten falls to the side, only then realizing how strong practice has made him. “I was being serious, you idiot.”

“So was I!”

The thing is this: Ten cannot imagine his life without Kun by his side. He cannot imagine a universe where they do not fight side by side, where they do not revolve around each other like the earth and moon. _If they don’t become Knights._ The thought seems impossible, foolish.

What does Kun have to worry about, anyway? A Knight’s sword is his birthright, a blood promise. In the Northlands, things are simple: you have a job and you do it. The king is King, the council is a Council, a knight is a Knight, no extra titles or names. _If they don’t become Knights. What else would they be?_

Laughter still floats over the hills, their voices both caught in the wind and they slowly realize that they are staring at each other with some unknowable emotion, something heavier than friendship, something more dangerous. Kun opens his mouth to say something but the sound of hooves pounding on the grass interrupts, and they turn to see Taeil riding up the hill.

“Where have you guys been?” he asks, wearing that air of superiority that is only afforded to older boys who are forced to watch over their younger friends. The small placeholder crown he wears glints on the afternoon sun. “There’s a Council meeting tonight. You should be there.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Kun says, standing. “Don’t worry. We’ll be there.”

“Will we?” Ten says, smiling. He raises an eyebrow at Kun. “I, personally, think we should use that time to fill Taeil’s bed with dirt.”

Taeil sighs. “You guys are going to get in trouble one day. And you _have_ to be at the meeting tonight. This one’s important.”

Ten stands and brushes dirt off of his pants. “Okay, okay. We’ll be there.”

“On time?”

“On time.” Ten gives Kun a conspiratorial wink. “Maybe.”

“Just be there!” Taeil yells out, exasperated, as he turns his horse back toward the castle. 

They wait until Taeil’s gone before they sink back into the grass, but the moment from before is already gone. It has vanished in the wind, but when Ten sees the dandelions lying on the ground at Kun’s feet he thinks he knows what that feeling is. He doesn’t have a name for it, though. Not yet.

“Do you think tonight’s the night?” Kun says joyfully, pulling at dandelions. “The meeting where we’ll officially become Knights in training?”

“I hope so,” Ten says. His heart has a strange rhythm to it, a stutter that wasn't there before. Kun’s eyes light up with anticipation, bright and glimmering. This is what he has trained for his whole life, and by extension, trained Ten. They are meant to do this together. They are meant to be together.

That’s what fate is, isn't it? Meant to be.

…

“The Council meeting will now begin,” a monotone voice drolls through the room, echoing off the stone walls. Ten resists the urge to yawn. The collar of his shirt feels too tight but at least it is clean, unlike the rest of his shirts covered with dirt and grass stains. He sneaks a glance at Kun, who is listening closely as if he is a member of the Council himself.

The King sits at the head of the table, eyes dark. He says nothing as the man with the dull voice reads from a long list of topics: issues with the Borderlands, movement of funds, taxation for the upcoming year. Taeil sits beside his father, and next to him sits Doyoung, quiet as he takes notes; the second son, dressed in purple.

Ten catches Kun’s eye and pretends to yawn into his hand. Kun gives him a stern look, but there is no severity behind it.

An hour passes, the Council droning on and on. The minutes drag out like eons, and Ten notices Kun tapping his fingers on his thigh beneath the long table. The fireplace at the end of the room casts everyone in the flickering light, haunted like ghouls.

“The last item of the Council deals with our two guests,” the man with the monotone voice says slowly. “Ten, son of His Highness, and Kun, son of the Qian family. Would you two please rise?”

They do, pushing their chairs back. The Council member opens his mouth to speak but the King raises a hand to silence him, standing instead. 

The King smiles at them. “After much consideration, you two have been accepted to officially train as Knights. I know it seems like such sudden notice, but you both have my warmest regards. Train well, and remain loyal to the Northlands.”

Ten resist the urge to tilt his head at the noyed words. It is the first thing his father has said to him in many, many years. Kun looks over at him, smiling slightly as if to say _we made it. We are almost there._

The King sits back down, straightening his embroidered sleeves, and the Council member startles back to attention. “The official ceremony for named Knights will be in January. Until then you must attend training, and you will be evaluated—”

Something doesn't feel right. Ten feels it the moment before the Council member’s next word, the moment his father tilts his head and looks him right in the eye. A sudden chill sweeps the room, and Ten turns a split second before the doors behind him open with an almost unnatural gust of wind.

A single elderly man stands in the doorway, stone hallway dark behind him. He wears all white, and even though he is not tall or large he seems to take up all the space in the doorway. He seems...big, as if his presence alone could suffocate them all.

Everyone in the room stands, even the King. The man enters the room, hunched with age, but no one dares to meet his eye. No one dares to ask if he needs help, or a chair.

The man stands in front of the King and does not bow his head. He looks on him as an equal, this man whom Ten has never seen, and nods, holding his thin, crooked hands in front of him.

The King lowers his head slightly in acknowledgment. “Seer,” he begins politely. “What brings you to the Council meeting?”

 _Seer_. Ten has only heard the term once or twice, and never in reference to a person. He has only ever heard while eavesdropping on court ladies, gossiping about the white stone temple on the highest hill near the palace. He had never known the Seer was a person, much less a wizened old man.

“I have seen a change,” the Seer says, and his voice is low and gravelly. “I have come to choose my successor.”

Absolute silence. Ten sees Kun tapping against his leg, and reaches out to gently press his hand down. His hand is shaking, and he gives Ten a wide, wordless glance.

 _It can't be one of us,_ his eyes seem to say. _It can’t._

Ten takes Kun’s hand in his own, briefly squeezing before letting go. _It won't be._

Even as he thinks it he knows the odds are not good. Who in the room is there to be chosen? The crown prince? The training Royal Advisor? The young Knights in the shadows of the room? His heart crashes to the ground like a falling star.

“This is so sudden,” the King says. “But if it is as you have seen, please let us know.”

The Seer turns a dissecting eye on everyone in the room, turning slowly. Ten almost wants to tap his own fingers against the table, finding that Kun’s nervous habit too easily rubs off on him. The Seer frowns slightly as he gives him a long glance, gaze chilling. Ten feels his blood run cold as ice, more bitter than the searing Northland winter. 

The Seer looks away, eyes drifting to Kun. He looks pale against the dark blue of his shirt. “You two have petitioned to become Knights.”

They say nothing.

The Seer turns to the King. “Dismiss the Council. I have chosen.”

Silence. Several Council members leave, some stay, but they can only stand there.

The Seer's eyes glint copper red, almost as vibrant as metal. “Qian Kun. You have petitioned to become a Knight. Why?”

Ten can see Kun’s hands clasped behind his back but they are shaking, and he can see the red crescents his fingernails leave in his palms. “My father was a Knight.”

The Seer’s eyes glint again. “Killed in the Borderlands.”

Kun’s mouth is a flat, expressionless line. “Yes, sir.”

The Seer gives him a smile that is probably meant to be comforting, but with his old, drooping face and unnaturally bright eyes, it only serves to act as an expression of terror. “You will be the next Seer, Qian Kun. Fate has chosen you.”

Kun’s eyes widen and Ten sees all the color drain from him, pooling in his shadow on the floor. “That can’t be right, my father was a Knight—”

“I have seen it.” The old man’s face is serene. “Bloodlines do not determine one’s future. Yours has been chosen for you.”

Kun steps forward, hands up and open as if he is about to drop to his knees and plead. “Please, this can't be right, surely there is someone else—”

The Seer says nothing. Ten grabs Kun’s arm, gently pulling him back.

“You can't do anything,” he whispers. “You have to do as he says.”

Kun’s eyes are helpless. “Ten, no, I’m supposed to be a Knight, not...not—”

“My patience grows thin.” The Seer looks at the remaining people in the room. “The meeting is dismissed. Leave.”

His voice echoes off the walls and reverberates on the stone. People file out of the room, looking back at Kun, Ten, and the man in white. Only the King remains, standing in front of his chair.

Kun looks at the Seer again. “You’re wrong. You have the wrong person. I'm not supposed to be a Seer.”

“What do you know of destiny, foolish boy?” the Seer says with a smile, even as his words cut. Ten tugs on Kun’s sleeve again, pulling his arm back from where he is about to grab the Seer’s pristine white robes. “It is what is destined. That is your fate.”

In the future, Ten will pinpoint this exact moment as the one that changed both of them. He will paint this image over and over—Kun’s pleading eyes, his breaking voice, this inscrutable man in white—and say this is the moment they grew up.

The King gives them a long look and leaves the room, and even though Ten gets the sense that he should leave too, he doesn’t.

“I will see you tomorrow,” the Seer says. His eyes glide to Ten’s and once again he frowns. He leaves the now empty room, the fire growing dim. In the Seer’s absence, the room seems to collapse on the two of them, small like a cage.

Kun’s hand is shaking, but he does not cry. Kun has never cried, never in front of anyone. Ten would expect him to, but he just doesn't.

Kun’s eyes are wet as he looks at Ten, intertwining their hands together. He lets out a little half-laugh as if the frantic fear in his eyes just moments ago did not exist. He stands still for a long time, breathing in and out, and Ten pulls him closer. He presses his cheek against Ten’s shoulder before letting go of his hand, standing up straight. There is a set determination to his mouth as if he is holding in a scream.

Ten rubs circles into his back. Destiny. Fate. Ten hates them all, hates them for all the trouble they bring.

“Are you alright?” Ten asks softly. Kun steps back, squaring his shoulders.

“Of course,” he says, giving Ten a smile that does not reach his eyes. “What do you think Seer training is like?”

…

Ten lies awake that night, staring at the ceiling while Kun breathes softly in the bed next to his. He thinks of dandelions, all strung together in a crown. He thinks of grass and long afternoons and sword fights in the hills. He thinks of a lot of things but he mostly thinks of Kun, his gentle voice.

 _I would like to live in a house by the sea,_ he repeats, over and over again.

Ten’s heart twists, and he hates the feeling

…

Ten dreams of an abandoned temple in the woods, all crumbling white stone and overrun vines. It's familiar—he and Kun used to play pretend here, defending this husk of stone as if it were the most magnificent of castles, the most prized of nations. They would throw rocks at the neighboring trees, huge and silent invaders. They always won these mock battles. They thought they always would. 

In this dream, Ten sees a man with gray hair standing among the cracked marble. His back is turned to Ten and he stands as still as a statue carved from the same stone, hands crossed in front of him, face a mystery.

 _Seer,_ the tall, dark trees whisper. _Seer._

…

In the coming days, Ten gets busier.

Ten goes to the courtyard to practice with the rest of the Knights in training; their teacher a boy not much older than he is. His name is Johnny, and he wears the rose insignia of the Northlands over his heart like it is a part of him. He pounds them each into the dirt, tells them to get up and be strong, and his smile never wavers. He is the very essence of what Ten wants to be: unerringly loyal, perfect to a fault.

“You are very good,” Johnny says one morning as they spar, the other young Knights watching with curious, excited faces. “But you can always get better.”

Metal slides against metal, the sound of swords ringing out into the courtyard like bells. Ten dodges Johnny’s blow and taps his dulled sword against his ribs. It's a move he has practiced many, many times before.

Johnny smiles. “Good job. Do it faster next time.”

Ten nods, his arms burning. He goes back to join the other Knights as some other boy goes to get beaten into nothing. 

“Wow,” says one of the youngest Knights, a boy with brown hair and a crescent-eyed expression of wonder. “Where did you learn that?”

Ten gives him a smile, but it feels false. “A friend of mine taught me.”

“Can you teach me?” the boy asks, eyes glittering like stars.

“Sure.” Ten’s heart pangs. “Of course.”

…

Kun vanishes in the mornings and often does not come back until the very latest hour of night, the precipice before one day becomes the next. He creeps into the room they both share, silent.

“How was training today?” Ten asks, seeing Kun freeze in the doorway as if he’s been caught committing a crime. 

“It was fine,” he murmurs. There are dark circles under his eyes, and his lips are dry. “What are you doing up? Aren't you tired?”

“I thought I'd wait for you.” Ten frowns. “You look unwell.”

Kun rubs at his eyes with the backs of his hands. His white shirt is crumpled everywhere Ten can see, his sleeves hastily rolled up over his elbows. “I'm fine. Just tired.”

He smiles at Ten, and his eyes still have enough energy to glow. “How was your training? Is it hard?”

“Johnny really does beat my ass,” Ten says, watching Kun pull off his shirt. “I used the move you taught me. The rib swipe.”

Kun smiles softly at that and looks away. “I'm glad you could use it. Seers aren't allowed to wield weapons.” He lets out an exasperated sigh. “The Seer has to have a _personal guard_.”

Ten leans forward on his bed. “Really? Who is it?”

Kun shrugs. “It's a bunch of sisters. The Seer told me that each Seer’s personal guard serves for life.” He shudders. “Can you imagine that? Serving someone for your entire life?”

“It's what a Knight would do.” Ten’s eyes flicker to the dulled practice sword sitting in the corner of the room. There should be two, he thinks. He does not know where the other went.

“It doesn't feel the same. Knowing that I’m supposed to...to do this for life just—” Kun pulls a blanket off his bed and wraps it around his shoulders. “It just makes me uneasy.”

The candle on the table between them burns lower and lower. “I know you’ll do great,” Ten says softly, watching shadows deepen around Kun’s eyes. “Whatever it is you do.”

Kun smiles, the expression lost in the semi-darkness. “Good night, Ten.”

Ten smiles back, blowing out the candle on the table. “Good night, Kun.”

…

When Ten gets back from practice the next day, half the room is empty. Everything that was Kun’s has been cleaned out: the messy stack of books is cleared off the shelf, all his clothes are gone from the little wardrobe near the wall. The bed is made but with the sheet corners untucked. Kun never left it like that, not in all the years Ten has known him.

Ten’s side of the room is untouched, messy and unkempt. Somehow, that makes the emptiness on the other side hurt more than it did before.

Kun doesn't come back that night. He doesn't come back the next night, or the night after that. He has become a living ghost, and some days when Ten is practicing he turns his eye to the lone temple in the distance, a speck of white on top of a hill. He wonders what Kun is doing. He wonders if he is safe.

The flat of Johnny’s blade slaps against his thigh. “Pay attention, Ten.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles, refocusing on the way Johnny swings his sword, the angle of his wrist and hand. He blocks the next swing, and the next, and the next.

This is what the days have become: repetitive.

…

The girl with red hair sits on Ten’s bed, wearing black from the neck down as if impersonating a shadow. She twirls a knife absentmindedly over her knuckles and it glints silver in the late sunlight.

Ten looks down at her. “Who are you?”

She doesn't answer his question, instead fishing a crumpled piece of paper out of a hidden pocket in her pants. “Are you Ten?”

Ten frowns slightly. “Who’s asking?”

The girl stares at him, one eyebrow raised. “I am?”

Ten wants to roll his eyes and say, yeah, obviously, but the seriousness in the girl’s face makes him pause. He nods and she shoves the paper into his hand, tilting her head slightly before vanishing out the door. 

Ten turns quickly, looking into the hall. “Hey, what's your name—”

He pauses. The girl is already gone, a shadow. He closes the door, turning his attention to the crumpled paper. He squints at the smudged name on the outside.

_Ten_

The handwriting is familiar and Ten practically tears the paper open as he unfolds it. He instantly recognizes the writing that stares up at him, dense and clean, and he feels his heart jump as he skims over it.

 _Come meet me in the fields,_ the writing says. _Tonight after sunset._

The note is signed with a simple _K_ , but Ten doesn't even need it to know who the sender was. He leaves his sword on his bed and heads out of the room, walking towards the fields.

…

“I thought you’d be late,” Kun says, standing among the high grass. The edge of his white robe flutters along the ground, an extension of the wind that blows across the fields. “I thought that you'd be practicing late.”

“I came as soon as I got your message, Ten pants, bracing his hands on his knees. The sun is dipping below the horizon, and in that red light, he can see Kun pulling slightly at the fabric of his robes as if he is uncomfortable. “I missed you.”

Kun’s nose scrunches up in frustration. “The Seer thought I should start living in the temple. He didn't really give me any warning, and I kept trying to find a way to contact you.” He rubs the back of his head, and Ten sees then that his hair has been cut short on the sides and back. It's different, but not...not bad. It suits him.

“You look good,” Ten says honestly. “You look different.”

Kun laughs a little, but it is dry and strained. He pulls absently on his robes. “White is the color of the Seer. It's the only color I’m allowed to wear.”

Ten feels his heart fall and eventually come to rest at his feet among the swaying grass. “You hate white.”

Kun is silent for a long time. “Guess I'll just have to grow to like it.”

His face changes in the time it takes Ten to blink, the dark expression in his eyes vanishing and morphing into something bright and happy. “How's training? You look like you've been working hard.”

Ten sits on the grass. “It's much of the same. I actually managed to beat Johnny the other day.”

Kun hesitates for a moment before sweeping his robes behind him and doing the same. “You must be proud.”

“I'm not going to lie, I am.” Ten pulls up his sleeve. “My wrist was sore for a whole day after. I had to spar with my other hand.”

Kun gives him a soft smile. Dusk slides into night and eventually the moon lingers above, less than half full but still bright enough for Ten to see Kun’s smile. The moonlight reflects off his robes, making him a second moon, another star, a beacon in the dark.

“Anything new going on in the palace?” Kun pulls at some grass. “I never hear anything anymore. Yeri only tells me a little bit.”

“Yeri?”

“She’s part of my guard,” Kun says, weaving several blades of grass into a chain. “She’s the one that delivered my letter.”

Ten remembers the girl in his room, hair as red as flame, eyes as dark as night. “Her hair is really red. Reminds me of strawberries.”

Kun laughs and this time it is natural, loud, a little piece of the Kun that Ten knew before. “That's what I told her! She got so angry at me,” he says, still laughing. “She’s a cute kid.”

Ten watches Kun weave grass together until it becomes a large, lopsided circle. Pieces of grass stick out the sides, jagged sikes in the otherwise beautiful design. If there was more light, Kun’s handiwork would be perfect.

“There’s not much going on. But,” he lowers his voice, “I think Taeil and Johnny are meeting in secret.”

Kun’s eyes widen and suddenly they are just boys, trading secrets about the castle. Everything was simple then, when they had no secrets of their own. “What? Really?”

It comes naturally, this back and forth. They talk and laugh until the night air becomes too cool to ignore, the moon right above them and preparing to descend. 

“Let me know when you want to see me,” Kun says, standing. He shivers and looks over his shoulder at the temple in the distance. From here it looks like a missing piece of the waning moon, embedded into the earth. “Tell Yeri.”

“I will,” Ten says, smiling as he holds his hands over his heart. _I will._

They do not say goodbye. They do not need to.

…

Days pass. They meet in the evenings, in the growing darkness, beneath the pink and red and orange sky. Kun talks slowly as if he must create each word from nothing as he says it. 

Ten does most of the talking now, but every time he asks him a question Kun answers it in the vaguest ways— _yes, I’m alright, everything is fine._ Sometimes Ten catches him pressing his hands to his forehead, wincing as if he is in pain.

“What have they been doing to you?” Ten asks one night, pressing a hand to Kun’s forehead. His skin feels as if it is burning. “You look so pale.”

“Nothing,” Kun says, pushing his hand away. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Don't lie to me,” Ten says softly. “I know something is wrong. What is it?”

Kun looks away. “I'm just tired, Ten. That's all.”

It is, perhaps, the first lie that has ever come between them.

...

It is the middle of the day when Ten sees Yeri in the corner of the courtyard. He looks around before going to her, ducking around a corner.

She says nothing and points to the wide fields. It is only the early afternoon, the sun still high in the sky, but Ten does not question her commanding eyes. He ducks away from the other Knights and walks over the hills, the grass high enough to brush his knees.

Kun is standing in the middle of a wide-open field, a white statue among the grass.

“Let’s run away,” Kun says hurriedly when he sees him, picking up the edges of his robe so the fabric does not get stained with dirt. “Let's leave right now, we can go anywhere—”

The desperation in Kun’s eyes is a foreign body to Ten. He has only ever seen it once before, when they were seven, and Kun was breaking sticks over his knee, an unhappy orphan that did not yet know he was an orphan.

“Calm down,” Ten says, grabbing his shoulders. “What happened? What is it?”

“I want to leave,” Kun says, chest heaving. “Ten, I don't want to be the Seer. I don't want—I don't want to live like this.”

Kun’s feet are bare, his eyes bright and feverish. Ten presses a hand to his face and feels him burning, like a fire untamed by rain. He pulls his hand away. “You're sick.”

“Listen, Ten, please,” Kun twists his hands into Ten’s shirt, skin hot against Ten’s even through the fabric. “I'm not sick. I need to leave. I need to leave before I can’t.”

He taps one hand against his leg, hard enough to bruise. Ten grabs his wrist and he stills like a deer in the forest, startled at every little thing.

“Kun.” Ten takes a deep breath. “You need to rest. Please.”

Kun looks at him, eyes reflecting the fluffy white clouds above. “They made a mistake,” he murmurs, voice dropping to a strained whisper. “I can't be the Seer. I _can't._ ”

Ten opens his mouth to say something, anything, but Kun pushes him away. He runs down the hill, across the field, towards the stone temple in the distance.

Ten watches his figure fade into the distance, one hand outstretched as if he could still, somehow, call him back.

…

They don't talk about that day. In fact, they don't talk at all; training keeps Ten up until late at night, and he receives no messages from Kun. It is a long, long week before he finally sees Yeri in a darkened corridor, whispering to him.

The sun is setting above them, above the fields. The first wildflowers of summer have begun to pop up among the grass, budding white and purple. The dandelions remain, stubborn as ever.

“It must be fun, getting to run around with a sword all day,” Kun says. He winds the stem of a dandelion between his fingers. The setting sun turns his fingers red.

Everything seems normal again. It is as if nothing had ever happened. Kun seems better now, calm and collected.

“It has its perks,” Ten responds. He rolls up his sleeve to reveal a deepening bruise. Kun winces when he sees it. “But these are definitely not a perk. When Johnny says he wants to spar, he _spars.”_

“Ouch,” Kun says, gently touching the edge of the bruise with his fingers. “Can’t he go a little easy on you?”

“Of course not,” Ten says. “Johnny wouldn’t want to train someone halfway. He’s very dedicated to beating me up so that one day _I_ can beat _him_ up.”

Kun stands and turns to look at him, mouth open in a playful half-smile as if he is about to say something he knows Ten will laugh at, but then suddenly his eyes go wide. He stumbles backward, tripping over his own feet. Ten is reaching out to him as he falls, hand catching the edge of his sleeve as he pitches backward. The dandelion tumbles to the ground.

“Kun?” Ten grabs Kun’s wrists and Kun is so pale he seems to blend in with the white cloth that covers him from head to toe, so pale that his open, shocked mouth seems as if it is filled with blood. “Kun, what’s wrong?”

“I’m fine,” Kun stammers out, even as he squeezes his eyes shut and lurches forward. “This happens sometimes, I’m fine, honestly—”

He lets out a gasp and falls into Ten’s arms, feverishly whispering words that make no sense. Ten looks down at him and sees that his eyes are flickering from brown to brightest gold, the color like a melted coin spilled into his irises. He looks up at Ten and he seems scared, his hands buried in Ten’s shirt. He slips to the ground and Ten goes with him, holding him upright as he goes limp and unresponsive, lost in the sight of something that Ten himself cannot see.

“Stay with me,” Ten says, holding Kun to his chest as he shakes, still murmuring the same words over and over again. He can make out a few of them, can hear _blood fire glass silver._ He can hear the word _you_ repeated over and over again, a chorus of _you you you you._

By the time Kun finally stops shaking, it feels like an eternity has passed between them. Kun gulps in air like a drowning man, knuckles turning white where he’s gripping Ten’s shirt. Color slowly returns to his skin, making him seem more real but less human.

The grass whispers around them, the wildflowers sturdy in the breeze. Kun does not look at Ten, just buries his face against his shoulder and watches the flowers wave, the grass dance, the trees at the edge of the forest reach for the sky. He lets Ten wrap his arms around him and squeeze. His eyes are brown again.

They stay like that for a long time, arms around each other, staring at everything and nothing at once. It is a long time before either of them say anything, and Ten hears Kun sniffle. His shoulder is damp where Kun’s cheek rests, and he holds him tighter.

“They were right,” Kun finally rasps out. “I saw things. I can _see_.”

“You’re so cold,” Ten murmurs. “Kun, you're so cold.”

No response. The sky goes from red to black to blacker still, the stars winking into existence above them. The moon watches with a shutting eye, a silent witness.

Kun wraps his arms around Ten, squeezing so hard it hurts, but Ten doesn't move away. He does not leave.

 _This is important,_ the night wind whispers. _You must remember this._

…

Ten dreams of that night. He dreams of it almost every night, for a week and a half, even as he waits to see Kun again. The image presents itself to him again and again: Kun falling to the ground, shaking, eyes so gold they were unreal. He chases away the lingering chill that had followed him, even as Kun had let go, even as he had walked wordlessly away.

Johnny takes him to the stables and they talk about horses. He lets Ten pick one out, a chestnut mare with a single white streak on its forehead.

“You want that one?” Johnny asks, frowning. “She’s unruly. Are you sure?”

The white streak on the horse’s forehead forms the rough shape of a star, and she regards him with cool indifference. Ten reaches out a hand, and she does not shy away.

“I’m sure,” Ten says softly. “What’s her name?”

“She doesn’t have one,” Johnny says. “You get to name her.”

Ten thinks for a moment, placing a hand on the horse’s star-shaped mark. “Star. Her name is Star.”

That night, before Ten goes to sleep, he gets the irresistible urge to tell Kun something. He doesn’t know what it is, though. He isn’t quite sure.

…

“I’m sorry if I scared you, before,” Kun says. A basket is resting in his lap, filled with small blueberries. “I had never...that had never happened to me before.”

“I thought you were going to die,” Ten whispers. He still remembers the way Kun had held onto him, a man adrift, untethered, clinging to shore. The memory haunts him, will haunt him for perhaps the rest of his life.

Kun places the basket of blueberries between them, the tops of the berries still a little green. The first of summer.

“What did you see?” Ten asks. “Is it a secret?”

Kun shakes his head. “I saw a king with a glass crown and a silver sword,” he says. “It was so clear...almost as if I was right there next to him.”

“Did you see us?” Ten asks, watching the dandelions sway in the breeze.

“No,” Kun says. “A Seer can never see their own future, though, so maybe that means we’re all right.”

Ten grabs a blueberry out of Kun’s basket and pops it into his mouth. The fruit is slightly bitter on his tongue, not quite ripe. He notices Kun doesn’t eat any. 

He toys with the hem of his robes and stares at something in the distance. Ten wipes his hand on his black shirt and watches him.

“Seers aren’t allowed to marry,” Kun says quietly. He says the words almost as an afterthought, the second half of a sentence he did not say. “The Seer said it interferes with the ability to prophesy.” He looks at him, eyes sad. “It’s a lonely life.”

“You’ll still have me,” Ten says. “I’ll visit the temple every day, I promise. I’ll bring you cakes from the kitchens and I’ll tell you who’s cheating on who. You won’t be lonely. I promise.”

“You’re too good a friend for me,” Kun says. “I don’t deserve you.”

“No, you don’t,” Ten replies jokingly, throwing a blueberry at Kun’s head. “You really don’t.”

…

_You’re too good a friend for me. I don’t deserve you._

Ten stares at the ceiling, wooden beams crisscrossing each other in the dark. Sleep eludes him, begs him to chase it even as it vanishes. He turns over and stares at the wall, the empty bookshelf, the abandoned wardrobe.

Ten does not have words for the things he wants to say. He does not have words for the person he wants to be, for the things he wants to do.

How do you describe love? How do you describe happiness? How do you describe the one person who has always been there, even as they are gradually pulled away?

 _How do you describe love?_ Ten looks at the basket of blueberries on the table and still doesn’t know.

…

Summer flies by, and by the time the first leaves of autumn begin to fall Ten can count all the times he has seen Kun on just two hands. The days pass, months pass, time flies by, and every day Ten finds himself walking in the direction of the stone temple. He never goes, though. He never crosses that line.

 _How do you describe love?_ Ten gently pats Star’s nose in the stables, feeding her an apple from his palm. She pushes her nose into his hand, huffing.

Loyalty.

…

“Does your personal guard have to be made up of girls?” Ten asks. “Could you have a Knight guard you as well?”

It is getting too cold to meet out in the fields and so they are in the room they once shared, candles blazing bright on the table and shelf. Kun sits on his old bed, white robes fanning out around him like a cloud. 

“I don't know,” he says, eyes glancing to the sharpened blade sitting on Ten’s bed. “I just know that the Seer’s guard has always been made up of women. Why do you ask?”

Ten takes a deep breath, looking at the floor. “I just thought it would be neat if I could...if I could be part of your personal guard. So that we could be together.”

Kun gives him a soft smile, heartbreaking in its familiarity and its barely concealed sadness. “You would want to do that? Follow me around?”

“It's you,” Ten says. “Of course I would.”

They stare at each other for a long time, the air settling into soft currents between them. 

“You look so different now,” Kun says finally. “You look like you could finally beat me in a fight.”

“I doubt it,” Ten says, his heartstrings constricting. 

Kun taps his knee slowly. “You wouldn’t like it,” he starts. “The temple is always cold. It’s always quiet.”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

Kun takes a deep breath. “I miss you all the time. I wish you were there.”

It is dangerously close to what Ten has been trying to say all along. _I miss you. I wish you were here. I wish..._

“You should head back before someone notices you’re gone,” Ten says, forcing the words out. He does not know why he is pushing Kun away, cannot understand what it is that makes him hesitate.

Disappointment flickers across Kun’s face. “I guess so.”

“I can walk back with you—”

“No.” Kun stands. “I'll be fine. Good night, Ten.”

Ten watches him leave, longing to reach out and pull him back. “Good night, Kun.”

He’s gone in a moment, and Ten sees a shadow with red hair grab his hand as he disappears from view.

_You must remember this._

_…_

The leaves on the trees slowly turn from green to orange, from living to halfway dead, and the next time Ten sees Kun it is the shadows outside the palace walls. Kun doesn’t quite blend in, his white robes a flag among the darkness. The winter chill creeps up on both of them, clawing its way beneath Ten’s jacket.

Ten cannot focus on what Kun is saying—he can only focus on the way his mouth moves in the shadows, the way the autumn wind blows through his dark hair.

“I love you,” Ten blurts out, the words escaping him before he can cage them in. Kun gives him a knowing smile.

“I love you too,” he says simply, leaning against the wall.

“No, you don't understand,” Ten stammers out. “I...I _love_ love you.”

Kun shakes his head. “And I said I love you, too.” He raises an eyebrow. “Did I stutter?”

Ten stares at him, mind slowly turning to accommodate for his response. He had expected rejection, a polite denial, not...this.

“Ten, how could I not love you?” Kun pushes himself away from the wall. “Every memory I have is of you. We grew up together, fought together.” He turns his eyes on Ten, the distant moonlight turning them gold. “And even after I had given up, you didn’t let me. You never left me.”

Ten’s mouth gapes open. The words are eerily similar to the ones he had prepared, almost as if Kun had peered right into his heart and pulled them right out.

The wall outlines Kun perfectly, stone dark against his white clothes.

“Can I kiss you?”

Kun’s eyes blaze as he grins. “Maybe.”

And so they do, just once in the moonlight, just once in the shadows. 

…

Ten counts down the days to the Knights ceremony. He counts down the days to the Winter Solstice, Kun’s birthday, to every meeting they arrange sometime between sunset and dawn.

They meet in the shadows, in empty rooms and hallways. Ten brings Kun cookies from the kitchens, slightly squashed. Kun brings him flowers that grow outside the temple walls, bright red and purple and yellow. They live like this: simply, never asking for more or less than these quiet moments, this borrowed peace.

Sometimes Kun shakes. Sometimes he breaks out into a cold sweat and wraps his arms around himself, around Ten, around anything that can ground him. It breaks Ten’s heart to see him like this, but what can he do? What can he do, besides stay and wait for the murmuring to subside?

Kun’s eyes are still beautiful, even when they blaze gold.

…

October comes and goes, November rushing behind. December comes and suddenly Ten realizes it is almost the Winter Solstice. After that, it is almost Kun’s birthday.

The Winter Solstice brings celebration and a loosening of rules. Johnny tells all the Knights in training to have a good time but to stay mindful and alert. Fires burn high and bright in the courtyard, illuminating the endless night. Food and drink run freely and it would seem as if there was nothing wrong, as if all the cares of the kingdom had been washed away.

Ten searches the crowd in the courtyard for a familiar face, a familiar frame clothed in white. He sees the King talking to some Council members near the steps of the palace, face grim. 

Ten jumps as someone tugs on his sleeve, and he looks down to see Yeri, her hair pulled back into braids. 

“Oh, hello,” he says. “What is it?”

She bites into a small cake. “Kun is inside waiting for you,” she whispers.

“Thanks,” Ten says. He gives her a small smile. “Are you having fun?”

“Irene and Seulgi told me to stay out of trouble,” she grumbles. “The food is good, though.”

“Thanks for the message,” Ten says, looking towards the stairs. The King and Council members are gone, somewhere among the crowd. The light from the bonfires and the heavy black night leaves everything in deep, cold shadow. Ten has learned not to be cold in the night, but still he shivers. “See you around.”

Ten doesn't go right up the stairs—instead he carefully enters through a side door through the sevrant;s quarters, eyes straining in the dark. 

There’s almost no one inside. Everyone is outside for the Solstice festivities, and the few that do come inside are soon chased back out by friends and family. The chill bites but everyone wraps themselves up in fur and fabric and bears it, as they do every winter. Northlanders do not fear the cold, do not even feel it. It is more of a nuisance than anything else.

Ten rounds a corner and someone grabs him, clamping a hand over his mouth. Ten reaches for his sword and then doesn’t, Kun laughing softly from behind him.

Ten whirls around and gently hits him in the chest. “You scared me!” He whispers furiously, even as Kun smiles.

“The Seer is going to be in the temple all night, holding the Solstice Vigil,” Kun says hurriedly. “It's just you and me.”

Ten grabs his hands and squeezes gently. His skin is warm. “What do you want to do?”

“Anything,” Kun says happily, his face changing as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. “Anything at all.”

…

They are just boys, really. Just two boys who laugh all the way down the hallway, hands wrapped in hands, kisses exchanged between steps down the empty hall. Laughter bubbles between them and Kun pulls him into an alcove, whispering that he hears footsteps, but he is smiling and he is the most beautiful person Ten has ever known. He thinks that he will take this memory with him to his grave, no matter how far into the future it may rest.

Kun clamps his hand over his mouth and they almost trip over each other as they run down the hallway.

“I hate you so much,” Kun says, laughing through his whispers. “You’re gonna get us in trouble!”

“It would be worth it,” Ten says, leaning in to kiss Kun again. “I love you so much.”

Kun pushes him back and his cheeks are flushed red as he smiles, hands still clasped in Ten’s own.

There are footsteps down the hall and both of them are once again running, around a corner and into the first empty room they can find. Ten sees a desk and empty shelves covered with dust.

"If anyone catches us I'm blaming you," Kun says breathlessly, trying to hold in his laughter. A warmth rises between them, a simple happiness that both of them can hold. Kun's hands are so warm in his own and even though the room is the dullest of grays Kun seems to be illuminated by his own rainbow, seems to be colored into existence by the gods themselves.

"Kun," Ten says quietly, hands gently resting on Kun's face. "I love you. You know that, right?"

"How could I forget?" He murmurs, leaning closer. His breath is warm. He smells like blueberries, even though the last of the blueberries have been killed by the winter frost. "How could I ever forget?"

This time when they kiss it's softer, something tinted golden by sunlight and memories of long days spent wandering the fields. Ten feels like he is trying to taste a memory, trying to grab onto something as light and rosy as a dream.

“I want to go somewhere,” Ten says, pulling away. He raises Kun’s knuckles to his lips, the skin so soft compared to the callouses that line his own hands. “Anywhere.”

The night is cold and dark, dead winter but still Ten doesn't mind. Nothing outside compares to the happiness they hold between each other, small and bright like a star.

“Anywhere you go, I’ll be there,” Kun murmurs back, his eyes wide and soft and filled with a light that Ten cannot truly describe. It is too beautiful for words.

…

Love leads them to the woods and then it leads them deeper, to the old abandoned temple overrun with vines. It is not as grand as the one Kun must live in but it is a place they both know well, the home of two boys that once played in a field and thought they knew everything about the future.

Their laughter rings among the trees in the dark and under the moonlight, and Ten feels that tonight they are wild creatures in the forest. They could be owls in the branches. They could be wolves howling at the moon.

The door to the ancient temple sways open with a heavy creak, the hinges rusting. Kun takes a deep breath and then turns to Ten, grabbing the front of his shirt.

"Kiss me," he says, his smile framed by moonlight.

Ten kisses him. And then he kisses him again, and again, and again. Kun's mouth tastes like blueberries and his hands are soft and this is where love leads them—to a place only they know, to a night that belongs to just the two of them. Tonight they are not expected to be anything but themselves. They have no legacy to follow, nobody that they are supposed to please. Tonight, they are only expected to be happy, if only from sunset till dawn.

They lie on the floor of the abandoned temple and trace the patterns of the vines on the high ceiling with their eyes. The night has a chill that can only be cured by the two of them lying side by side, hip to hip and chest to chest. Ten could never have imagined that a touch could be this warm. He could never have imagined that he would feel this whole.

That night they point to the stars, visible through the gaps in the old ceiling. They tell each other stories by a fire that Ten struggles to make. They eat dry cakes that Ten has stolen from the kitchen and laugh. Kun kisses him. His eyes are brown as the earth, his smile as bright as the moon.

This is where love leads them—to a place where they are only expected to love each other, and nothing else.

…

Ten becomes a Knight on the coldest day in January, and even as snow falls gently on his navy blue coat the sun shines like it has reserved all of its beauty for this one occasion.

The King gives a speech about loyalty, about perseverance, about strength. His voice echoes throughout the courtyard, the Knights standing in perfect rows before him. 

“There is no higher honor,” he says, crown perfectly silver and sharp, “than to be loyal to your King and your people.”

Ten blinks a falling snowflake out of his eye, hands cold where they are curled around the hilt of his sword. Thr bight steel is stamped with a pattern of roses. He turns slightly, searching the crowd for a familiar face, a familiar splash of white.

The snow continues to fall, and even though Ten should feel nothing but happiness he finds that something else lurks in his heart instead.

…

Red smoke drifts above the temple on the hill, a splash of color in the otherwise gray sky. Ten looks up, pausing as he feeds Star a handful of oats.

“Hey, Johnny,” he says, frowning. “What's that?”

Johnny looks up from where he is cleaning his sword. “I'm not quite sure. Could it be a fire?”

Ten feels a pang of fear slice through his heart like a blade. “Let me go ask someone,” he says hurriedly. “I'll be right back.”

He doesn't intend to ask anyone anything. He runs out of the stables and past the courtyard and over the fields, heart pounding. His mind runs through all the worst scenarios but he pushes them away, focuses on one step and then the next, the way all the grass is dead beneath his feet.

There is a fire burning in front of the temple, and Ten realizes this is the closest he has ever been to this part of Kun’s life. His footsteps slow as he gets closer, the smoke from the fire causing his eyes to burn.

Five women are standing around the pyre in the field, all wearing black, all wearing calm expressions. Ten sees Yeri among them, head bowed and hands clasped together. He sees Kun, back turned to him, watching red smoke billow into the clouds.

“Kun!” Ten yells, the sound of the fire cracking through the field. “Kun!”

He runs closer and Kun looks at him with a stricken expression, as if the sight of him is an arrow through his heart.

“What’s happening?” Ten asks, panting. “I thought there was a fire or something, that you were in trouble—”

“The old Seer is dead,” Kun says flatly. His eyes carry a frightening emotion, something between anger and crushing emptiness. Limitless sadness. 

Red smoke pushes itself upwards into the sky, heat and flame causing Ten’s eyes to water. He can make out a bundle carefully wrapped in white right at the center.

“Kun, I—”

Kun’s face shifts into neutrality and remains carefully, expertly blank. “I am the Seer now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [king with a glass crown](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6TmGDaK4UCAoV0XsD6PENg?si=A4HXu5YGQIayemhGK_KGNw)  
> comments are always appreciated! hmu on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/nastaeyong)


	2. the magician

_I am the Seer now._

Ten sinks to one knee, the grass cushioning the ground beneath him. An unnameable emotion flickers through Kun’s eyes, frightening in its obscurity.

“You don’t need to kneel to me,” Kun says softly, voice lost in the violent crackle of flame. 

Ten stands, watching Kun turn away and walk towards the fire. His image blurs for a second in the heat, a figure already made of ash.

…

“Like this,” Ten says calmly, repositioning the sword in Jisung’s hand. “Keep your wrist straight.”

Jisung adjusts his wrist as he’s told, and Ten marvels at how quickly he catches on. He’s not a Knight yet, but Ten figures that once the new year rolls around he, too, will be wearing a rose insignia on his chest and a stamped sword on his hip.

“I feel like all I do is practice,” Jisung says, and though the words sound like a complaint Ten can tell from the glint in his eye that they are simply a statement of fact. “How can I ever get as good as you?”

“Practice more than me,” Ten says pleasantly. “Let’s try it again: wrist straight.”

Jisung swings his sword upwards with ease, almost effortless. He turns the blade and swings it down, the metal cutting through the air with a soft whistle. Up, down, side, side. He holds his hand out in front of Jisung’s blade and he stops, the sharp edge of his sword hovering an inch away from Ten’s open, vulnerable palm. 

“Strength is important, but so is control. Without direction, strength is useless.” Ten gently rests his hand against the flat of Jisung’s blade. “Keep practicing with that in mind.”

Jisung nods avidly, dipping his head slightly as Ten smiles at him. He sees someone wave out of the corner of his eye and turns to see Johnny standing at the edge of the courtyard, hair falling in his eyes. The early springtime sun casts the faintest shadows across his face.

Ten jogs over, tucking his sword beneath his arm. “What is it?” 

“The new Knights are going to do their customary visit to the villages,” Johnny says. “We’ll be leaving next week.”

Ten nods. He knows about the month-long journey, heading from town to town to greet the citizens of the Northlands. But something in Johnny’s face seems different, hesitant. 

“Something’s different,” he says, knowing that Johnny would not hold the truth from him. “What is it?”

“We won’t be going to the Borderlands,” Johnny says. “Things are too volatile. The visitation will be a little shorter than it usually is since the King wants the Knights close by in case of an emergency.”

Ten leans against the wall, the cold stone digging into his back. “Are things getting that bad?”

Johnny shrugs. “The Southern Isles have been getting bold. We’ve had reports of riders in red all across the Borderlands.”

Not good news. Not good news at all. 

Ten nods. “I’ll help prepare the others. Is there anything else?”

Johnny pauses, looking around as if he expects someone to pop out of the ground and attack them. 

“Don’t tell anyone too much about what I’ve said,” Johnny says. “Just say the visitation will be shorter than it usually is. I don’t think it would be wise to let too much information spread among the newer Knights.”

Ten nods and Johnny grins brightly as if the seriousness that had flitted across his face was just a shadow and not a real emotion. He claps Ten on the back, and the force of the friendly gesture causes Ten to almost bow forward. “I knew I could trust you. I’ll see you later, then!”

Ten waves as Johnny walks away. He looks back to see Jisung still practicing, stopping his sword mid-air as he slices downward. The blade doesn’t even waver, even with all the force behind the blow. 

Absolute, complete control.

…

They do not see each other like they used to. Ten trains in the courtyard and in the fields, his sole companion a blade, his sole friend his thoughts. Kun remains in the temple, and Ten catches only the faintest whispers about his welfare. He cannot ask, for when he does he is met with silence and the lowering of eyes, the timid quiet of voices without answers.

The rose garden outside the palace rarely has visitors: it is walled off, a single gate connecting it to the outside world. Ten pushes the gate open, surprised that it isn’t locked.

The rose garden is carefully maintained every month of the year by a ghost crew of servants and gardeners. Ten never sees them but he sees the flowers bloom faithfully every spring, every winter, and knows that they do their job well. The spring roses are just beginning to bloom, the pink and orange blossoms reminding him of faint sunrises over the palace.

There is a man sitting on a bench among the flowers, wearing nothing but white. He doesn’t see Ten at first, instead picking loose petals off the ground and collecting them in his open palm.

Ten walks up behind him and gently places his hands over his eyes. Kun grabs his wrists, and his hands are warm.

“I already know it’s you,” he says jokingly. “Were you going to try to fool me?”

“Perhaps,” Ten says, kissing Kun on the cheek. “It’s always worth a try.”

“I heard about your journey through the villages,” Kun says. “You’ll be leaving soon.”

Ten tries to still the excited flutter of his heart. It’s been at least two months since he last spoke to Kun, at least two months since their one terse exchange at the foot of the temple.

_I am the Seer now._

“I’m excited,” Ten says honestly. “I’ve never been so far out of the palace.” He pauses. “I wish you could come, too.”

Kun shrugs and smiles, even as a dark shadow flutters through his eyes. “I’m so busy nowadays, anyway. I wouldn’t have the time.”

“Still…” 

Kun raises a hand. “Don’t worry about me. I just hope that you’ll be safe on the journey. I hope you enjoy seeing the world outside this place.”

“Is there anything you want me to bring you?” Ten asks. “I’ll get you whatever you want, unless it's someone’s head or something. I don’t think Johnny would approve.”

Sweet, comfortable silence. The sky is blue and the rose garden curls around them, the roses every color imaginable. They seem to reflect on Kun’s white robes, a kaleidoscope or rainbow that slips out of Ten’s grasp.

“Bring me flowers,” Kun finally says. “Any that you find.”

“As you wish it, Seer,” Ten says lightly, dipping into a bow. Kun’s face grows grave for a moment, a shadow crossing it that comes from no cloud.

“Don’t call me that,” Kun says, voice growing quiet. For a moment it seems as if he is underwater, drowning.

Ten raises an eyebrow, questioning.

“They all address me as Seer now,” Kun says, gently running his fingers over the petals of a yellow rose. “I fear that one day I will no longer have a name.”

“I’ll remember your name,” Ten says. “Now and always. I promise.”

“You make a lot of promises, you idiot.”

“I’ve never broken any of them, though.” Ten grins and Kun playfully smacks him on the back of the head.

“Not yet,” he says, smiling. “Not yet.”

…

The Knights leave early on a Monday, just as the sun is peeking over the horizon. Dew covers the grass and the air still harbors a lingering chill, a throwaway of the winter. Ten pats Star’s nose as the other new Knights mill about, Johnny attempting to wrangle them together. Ten recognizes all of them, even if not by name—the blonde man from an outer village with his hair cut short on the sides but still hanging over his eyes, the boy with the distilled determination of twenty men, the tall man with a smile brighter than any polished sword.

“Is everyone here?” Johnny asks, looking over the group. There are only about 20 of them, and even though they are supposed to be the best fighters in the kingdom they are still, sometimes, just confused.

The youngest member of their group rests a hand on his horse. “Johnny, you keep asking that. You already know everyone is here.”

“Thank you, Mark,” Johnny says. “I appreciate your attention.”

Mark beams at the praise.

The palace and all its buildings, all the hills and fields around it, is surrounded by forest. The ring-shaped forest only has one way through: a wide, stone path through the dense mass of trees. Ten has never passed through the gate on this path, has never been past those trees. His skin itches with the possibility.

The stone path is wide and the gates are well-oiled steel, gleaming in the light. Ten nudges Star forward until they pass through the gates and step onto the pressed dirt road beyond. Ten takes a deep breath and finds it disappointing that the air on the other side of the gate is just the same as the air before.

They set off, just as the sun finally rests in its permanent place in the sky.

…

The towns closest to the palace are beautiful, all cobblestone and brick and wildflowers. The first town they visit has streets lined with flowers, and as they ride through kind faces come out to greet them. Johnny accepts their smiles with grace and ease, but something about the pageantry of it all doesn't sit right with Ten.

They spend the night in a small inn at the center of town, and the innkeeper insists they do not need to pay. He says that it is an honor to serve those that protect them. 

Sincerity bleeds through his words, but it never quite reaches his eyes.

…

“I’m so excited for all of you to meet my family,” Yuta says. His blonde hair glints in the sun. “I haven’t seen them in years.”

“I bet they’re amazing,” Mark says, biting into a piece of bread gifted to them at the last village they visited. It had been smaller, quieter, but the people had still smiled. Always smiling, almost as if they are afraid of what will happen if they frown.

Johnny smiles. “Make sure you familiarize yourselves with all the towns and villages,” he says, unable to let go of his duties even as he rests. “You may be stationed at one of them.”

Mark and Yuta turn to each other with wide eyes and pointing fingers, the same idea bubbling on their tongues. Excitement at the prospect of being together.

The sun is beginning to set, and as it descends it paints the sky every shade of red imaginable. The wide expanse of grass that surrounds them stretches as far as the eye can see, flowers dotting the green. Ten pulls one out of the ground. It is a yellow daisy with a black center, the flower so small he can rest it right in the crease of his palm. He looks at it for a moment longer and then gently tucks it into his cloak pocket.

Two weeks in. Sometimes, when they camp in the fields or rest in the small towns, Ten wonders how Kun is doing. He wonders if he is okay. Every day he recounts all the things he has seen, all the new things he has done, in the hopes that the wind will carry them to that cold stone temple where Kun rests.

He’s seen so many people, young and old and happy. Just the other day he helped an old couple pick berries off of trees, careful not to ruin the delicate branches with his clumsy hands. Just the other day he had let a small crowd of children play with his sword, watching them carefully to make sure they did not hurt themselves. As lonely as he is, he loves this strange world outside the palace. He just wishes Kun was here to see it with him.

Ten lies on the grass and pulls another yellow flower out of the grass. He twirls it between his fingers, watching the petals all blur together like the rays of the sun.

Somewhere Mark and Yuta are laughing, but Ten’s mind is far, far away.

…

Even though Yuta’s village is only a few days away, they never quite make it.

Ten doesn’t know the name of the village they were supposed to visit today. He doesn't know anything about the people there, their lives, their names. But still, when he sees smoke rising up above the hills, he knows in his heart something is wrong.

The sky is gray. The clouds loom over them as if they are just waiting to burst open and drown them.

Johnny notices it, too. He pulls the reins of his horse and comes to a stop. Ten comes up beside him. 

“Johnny, what—”

“Do you smell that?” Johnny asks quietly, and it is only then that the wind shifts, bringing with it a wave of a bitter, nauseating odor. It almost smells like rotting meat, burning hair.

Johnny crosses over the hill, the village laid out below. Ten can see now that the smoke rises right from the center. From here the details are not clear, but the ground has been scorched everywhere he can see. 

Johnny’s eyes widen and he races down the hill, the rest of the Knights following. The smell makes Ten sick to his stomach and as he gets closer to the first house it gets stronger, almost overpowering. He sees Yuta press a hand to his face.

The first house has been burned to nothing but a shell of its former self. The group slows as they get closer, and Ten sees Johnny’s jaw clench. 

“Yuta, Jaehyun, check to see if there is anyone inside. Everyone else follow me.”

The second house is burned black. The third is just crumbling pieces of wood and brick, charred beyond repair. The acrid burning smell makes Ten’s eyes water, and he pulls the edge of his cloak up over his mouth. 

The center of the town, a square where all the paths intersect, is empty. The only thing there is a large black pile, the contents unrecognizable. Johnny gets off his horse, drawing his sword. He sticks it into the black pile, ash drifting off like snowflakes. A single, charred hand falls loose, skin so black from burning that it does not even look human.

“Oh, gods,” Mark chokes. Johnny turns away from the hand and Ten can see the writhing shapes, the half outline of bodies burnt into nonexistence. It is cruelty. It is the physical form of heartlessness.

“Search for any survivors,” Johnny says quickly. “Anyone.”

Ten gets off his horse, standing beside Johnny as the other Knights peel away to search the hoes that surround the square. Johnny doesn’t say anything for a long, long time.

“Do you think the Southern Isles did this?” Ten asks quietly. 

Johnny sheaths his sword and looks away from the blackened bodies. The smell is almost unbearable, smoke still rising into the sky. “I could never have imagined they would do such a thing,” he murmurs. “This is an act of war.”

Footsteps come up behind them and they turn to see Mark panting, eyes wide. “I found a survivor!”

They follow him past the houses, to a small cart filled with hay. A small inquisitive face peers out at them, smudges of dirt under its eyes.

“Hey,” Johnny says, kneeling. “Are you okay?”

The face doesn't respond. 

“I’m Johnny,” Johnny says softly. “I'm a Knight. I’m here to help you.”

The face still doesn't speak, but it unearths itself from the hay to reveal short hair, a torn green dress. It’s a little girl, maybe 6 or 7, but the haunted expression in her eyes seems much, much older. 

“I’m hungry,” the little girl says quietly. 

Ten watches as Johnny pulls a small, bruised apple out of the pocket in his cloak. He holds it out to the girl, who regards him warily. 

“Here,” Johnny says quietly. “You can have it.”

The girl snatches it from his hand and bites into it with a ferocity Ten has only seen in wild animals. She chews, watching the three of them with wide eyes.

“What’s your name?” Johnny asks gently, as if he is afraid he will scare her away. 

The girl shakes her head. 

“That’s alright,” Johnny says, smiling at her. “Take your time, okay?”

The girl ignores him, steadily chewing the apple down to its core. Johnny stands, his smile dropping as he looks away from the girl.

“We are heading back to the palace,” Johnny says quietly. “Now. Round up the others and let them know.”

Mark nods and scrambles onto his horse. Ten watches Johnny turn back to the girl, trying to coax even the simplest answers out of her. _What is your name? Where are your parents? What happened here?_

“Johnny,” Ten says quietly. “We can't leave her here.”

“I know.” Johnny offers the girl his hand and she takes it, clutching the apple core in her fist. He lowers his voice to just a pitch above a whisper. “Gods, I can’t imagine what she must have seen.”

Ten looks at the girl. “Hey, have you ever seen a castle before?”

The girl looks at him with wide eyes. “No.”

“We can take you to see one,” Ten says. “Do you want to come?”

The girl hesitates before nodding and dropping the apple core. She lets Johnny gently steer her away from the hay cart, down a side street that does not intersect the town’s center.

The Knights are all silent when they see her, and Ten sees Yuta place a hand over the rose insignia on his chest. It is, perhaps, the simplest action of respect he can give.

Johnny lifts the girl onto his horse, motioning to the others to follow him. They go right back the way they came, the air slowly beginning to smell like air again, the wind beginning to taste like wind and not ash. 

Ten looks behind him, just once. Already, the thin rain is beginning to dampen the smoke.

…

“What’s your name?” Johnny asks again. The girl refuses to answer, just as she refuses to sit with the Knights around the fire they’ve built in the middle of the field. Instead, she sits in the darkness, on the grass, staring at the moon. She shakes her head.

Ten watches from afar. “Johnny,” he calls out. “You need to eat something.”

Johnny shakes his head before turning his attention back to the little girl. “Are you hungry? Cold?”

The girl shakes her head and Johnny stands, wiping grass and dirt off his pants. He rests a hand on Ten’s shoulder, wordlessly urging him to try. He lets go and walks back to the fire.

Ten stares at the back of the girl’s head for a while, unsure of what to say. He eventually shrugs off his cloak and drapes it around her shoulders, all the fabric bunching up along the ground. The navy fabric seems to eat her up.

“I’m Ten,” he says simply. The girl doesn't say anything but pulls a fistful of grass out of the ground.

The girl lifts her head and actually _looks_ at him. “Like the number?”

Ten smiles at her. “Yes, like the number.”

The girl goes back to pulling grass out of the ground. “Why did your mom name you that?”

“She didn't,” Ten says casually. “She died, so everyone just called me Ten.”

“Oh.” The girl looks down. “Sorry.”

Ten shrugs. “It was a long time ago.”

“I miss my mom,” the girl says quietly. 

“Where did she go?”

“The men in black took her,” the girl says. “She told me to hide in the cart until she came back.”

“Men in black?” Ten asks. “Not red?”

The girl nods, speaking faster than before. “They had masks and big long swords. They came at night.”

Ten thinks for a moment. “Did they say anything?”

The girl shakes her head. 

“Thank you for telling me,” Ten says. 

The girl nods, pulling his cloak tighter around her tiny shoulders. “My name is Reina,” she says finally. 

Ten places a hand on her head. “Go to sleep, Reina. I’ll watch out for you.”

The fire crackles behind them as Reina leans over and rests her head on his arm. In moments, she is fast asleep.

…

They travel back to the palace as fast as they can, stopping only for a couple of hours to rest when the road becomes tiring and long. The journey takes them several days but soon Ten sees the familiar trees that circle the palace grounds, dark and lushly green.

Reina’s eyes widen as she wraps her arms around Star’s wide neck. “Where’s the palace?”

“Just beyond the trees,” Ten promises. He had already told Johnny everything Reina had told him, and could not mistake the dark look in his eyes for anything except confusion.

It's strange. When they pass through the gates he doesn't feel relief or happiness at being home—he just feels a growing sense of dread, the feeling a black pit that gnaws up through his stomach. The Knights are quiet.

Ten entrusts Reina to several older noble ladies, dressed in fine clothing that has faded over time. He realizes just how different life in the palace is when he sees Reina look with stars in her eyes at everything she sees, from the marble floors to the high, arched ceilings.

Johnny grabs his arm gently. “The emergency Council meeting has started. They won’t allow anyone else in but me.”

A strange decision. “Wouldn’t they want all our accounts?”

“No.” Johnny nods at a passing Council member. “I was told they wanted a single, simple account.”

“Speak well,” Ten says, feeling his stomach overturn. “Say what you think is right.”

…

Taeil does not look angry when Ten stops him in front of the Council room doors. He just seems surprised. 

“Ten,” he says, waving away the guards that follow him. “What is it?”

“Has Johnny told you anything yet?”

Taeil gives him a calm, unbothered look. “He told me about the riders in black. He told me about the village.”

“Something doesn't feel right,” Ten whispers. “Wearing black? Riding in at night? It doesn't seem like something the Southern Isles would do.”

From what Ten knows of the Southern Isles, they do not prefer espionage. They wear red at every chance ride along the Borderlands with their flag held high as a reminder that they are always there, that they will always be there. They have never led an attack like this: every time they have been seen it was merely a reminder, chaotic rides through outlying towns and villages as a warning. They have never done anything this cruel.

Taeil looks over his shoulder at his guards. “I’ll voice your concerns at the Council meeting.”

Ten bows his head. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

Taeil rests a hand on his shoulder and squeezes slightly, smiling. “Be safe,” he says, not as a prince but as a brother. 

“I will.”

…

  
  


Ten, mindlessly wanders the palace for hours, drifting towards the Council room. He looks at the heavy wooden doors, resisting the urge to press an ear against them and listen. He knows Johnny is inside, but he cannot imagine what he will say.

Down the hallway, he sees a flash of white round a corner, there and gone. He looks back at the heavy Council room doors and then walks quickly around the corner. 

Kun is sitting beneath the window, the tall arched glass rising behind him like a throne. He gives Ten an uncanny look, as if he has been expecting him all along.

“I heard what happened,” Kun says by way of greeting. “How do you feel?”

Ten feels an odd shift in the air, a reversal of their positions. For a moment they are not Kun and Ten, but Royal Seer and Knight.

“It was awful to see,” Ten says quietly. “That little girl...I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you think the Southern Isles did it?” Kun asks, standing. The sunlight frames him perfectly, painting his white robes buttery yellow. The color of sunflowers.

“I don’t know.” Ten digs into his cloak pocket, pulling free the small yellow daisy he had shoved there. The petals are slowly pulling free of the black center, but he hands it to Kun anyway. “This is for you.”

Kun pauses for a moment, face going blank as he slowly reaches forward and takes the flower in his palm. He cradles it as if he can somehow prevent it from dying, as if he can protect it from its eventual end.

“Thank you,” Kun says. He brushes a finger over the petals, something deliberate and hallowed in the movement. “It's very beautiful.”

Something is off, but Ten doesn't have the ability to see the future and cannot tell what it is.

“Kun,” Ten starts slowly, “is there something wrong?”

Kun looks up at him, and his eyes flash gold. “The Council meeting is ending,” he says, ignoring Ten’s question. He tucks the flower in his sleeve. “You should go talk to Johnny.”

Ten hears the Council doors creak open and he turns, voices swelling in the previously empty hallway. He rounds the corner and locks eyes with Johnny. He looks pale.

“Johnny,” Ten says, running over. “What’s happening?”

“The Council decided that it must have been the Southern Isles.” Johnny’s hand absentmindedly comes to rest on the hilt of his sword. “They want to send them a message. I am not quite sure what they plan to do.”

Something about the decision does not click in Ten’s head: the gears turn but there seems to be something missing. “Are they sure? Are they sure it was the Southern Isles?”

“There doesn’t seem to be any doubt,” Johnny says, lowering his voice. Ten looks past Johnny and sees the King narrow his eyes at them, his expression suspicious.

“So we go to war, then?”

“Not yet,” a smooth voice says from behind Johnny. They both turn and kneel as the King approaches, his purple robes whispering against the tiled floor. “We will increase security along the Borderlands and give them the chance to repent their heinous actions. I do not desire war or death, and I hope it does not reach us.”

“Your Highness,” Johnny says, eyes lowered. “The Knights will do their best to serve any decision you make.”

“I am aware.” The King looks down at Ten, and when their eyes meet his mouth tightens into a thin, displeased line. He says nothing else as he walks away, a fading purple figure among the navy blue of the Knights and the muted gray gold of the Council. 

Ten stands and looks at Johnny, resisting the urge to tell him that something just doesn't seem right, that maybe things aren't as they seem. He looks over his shoulder and sees Kun at the end of the hallway, hands folded together in front of him. He shakes his head once, slowly, and then vanishes down another hallway.

…

Ten tells Johnny he is going to check on the Knights in training, but somewhere along the way he gets distracted and finds himself on the hills, staring at the temple in the distance. The air smells like fresh grass and flowers, the graying sky above promising rain.

The temple is still and silent as the sky splits open above. The rain beats down on him as he turns away, back towards the palace.

…

The Knights don’t talk about it, but news travels fast. Ten spends a month waiting in quiet fear, listening for whispers, murmurings of a decision he cannot help to make.

A rider is sent to the Southern Isles, face young and unlined. Three weeks later his horse comes back alone, an arrow embedded in the saddle. 

The palace is quiet. No one dares to guess what happens next.

…

“I need to see him,” Ten says at the foot of the temple. The wide stone stairs are blocked by a girl with dark, straight hair and a long length of chain wrapped around her waist. She wears all black, and the darkness of her hair and eyes makes her seem akin to a shadow in human form.

“The Seer will see no one,” the girl says. The chain at her waist glints in the late afternoon light and Ten realizes that it is ridged with small, tiny hooks.

“Tell him it's Ten,” he says, peering past her to look at the heavy stone doors. “He’ll want to see me.”

The girl does not move. “I said, the Seer will see no one.”

“Please, I need to see him—”

The girl's hand flies to her waist as he steps forward, and he notices her nails are painted the darkest, deepest red. Her eyes are a threat that does not relent.

There is a loud, somber wail and Ten grimaces, watching the doors to the temple slowly swing open. They stop halfway, and Ten sees Kun, Yeri holding onto his elbow. The sun glints off his hair in a way that makes it seem much, much lighter than it was before.

“It’s alright,” Kun says quietly to the girl with the chain. He walks down the steps slowly, as if each step must be planned carefully in advance. “I will speak to him.”

The girl glares at Ten, but bows her head to Kun and says nothing. She leaves the three of them to walk up the steps and stand by the doors.

Kun sits on the stairs, Yeri still holding onto his arm. His face is as pale as his robes, and where his sleeve bunches up around his wrist Ten can see dark smudges, like bruises.

Kun gives him a tired smile. “Ten.”

“You’re sick,” Ten realizes. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sick,” Kun says placatingly, holding up a hand. Yeri lets go of his arm but does not move away, watching both of them with hawk eyes. “I am just having a bad day, I guess.”

“A bad day?” Ten drops to his knees on the stairs beside him, grabbing his hand. It is as cold as ice. “How long have you been like this?”

Kun takes a deep breath, and as he exhales his chest sags with the effort. “So many things are happening at once,” he says breathlessly. “It's hard to keep up.”

Ten doesn't understand what he means, not at first.

“How was your talk with Doyoung?” Kun asks, pushing the words out. “What did he say?”

Ten frowns. “I haven't talked with Doyoung.”

“Oh,” Kun says, a sudden panic coming over him. “I thought you had, I’m sorry, I—”

“Seer,” Yeri, says soothingly. “You must calm down.”

Kun nods, but his hand shakes in Ten’s like the smallest leaf on a dying tree. 

“Am I supposed to do something?” Ten asks. “Am I supposed to talk to Doyoung?”

“Ten,” Kun rasps. “Don’t let anything I say influence you, don’t let me sway you—”

Kun’s eyes flash gold and then suddenly roll back in his head, his body slumping against the stairs. The white fabric of his robes streams down the marble steps as if he is a melting candle.

Yeri catches his head before it hits the edge of the stairs, holding it still in her hands as he whispers feverishly into the air. She does it with practiced ease, as if she has done this a hundred times before. 

“Yeri,” Ten whispers. “Let me help.”

She gives him a dark glance but moves, gently placing Kun’s head in his lap. “Hold him tightly,” she says quietly “So he does not hurt himself.”

Ten does as he’s told, cradling Kun’s head in his lap, his hair damp with sweat. For a moment his eyes snap open and Ten sees nothing but the purest gold, so solid that Ten mistakes them for the eyes of a statue. Kun’s skin burns against his hands. His voice is like a neverending hiss in Ten’s ears. 

Yeri grabs Kun’s hands, placing them on his stomach and gently holding them there. They stay like that for a long time, anchoring Kun to the ground. Ten doesn’t know how to pray but he does so anyway, wishing Kun back, wishing him awake.

The minutes stop and start and rewind. Eventually, Kun blinks his eyes open, tears streaming down the side of his face and into the crevices between Ten’s fingers. Silence follows, as heavy as a stone or mountain. 

“I’m fine now, thank you,” Kun says softly. Yeri lets go of his hands, bowing her head slightly. Kun’s eyes flicker up to Ten’s face, and he gives him a small, tired smile. 

He lets Ten help him to his feet and then slowly climbs the stairs, rubbing his hands against his face. Ten’s hands are still wet with tears, and as he wipes his palms on his pants he realizes the faint gold tinge that goes with them.

…

“Whenever a new Seer is chosen the old sisters teach the new sisters how to best guard him,” Yeri says, braiding dandelions into a crown. “They teach us the rules, the customs, the best ways to fight.”

“Did they teach you how to...” Ten doesn’t have the words. “Hold him like that?”

“No,” Yeri says. “Because the old Seer did not do that. The sisters told us that at most the Seer would feel ill, or have headaches.” 

“I guess they’re all different,” Ten says, watching Yeri unravel the perfect braid she just created. 

“No,” Yeri says. “No Seer in recorded history was affected like this. I asked the old sisters, looked through the sacred accounts, but there is nothing. He is suffering, and we do not know how to help him.”

“Maybe he could talk to someone,” Ten offers. “A physician, maybe.”

“Ten,” Yeri says seriously. “You do not understand. When a Seer is chosen, he makes an oath of silence. All his burdens become his own, and nothing he sees can be shared with anyone but the King.”

“That doesn’t mean he can't see a physician,” Ten presses on. “Maybe they could give him medicine to help with his shaking.”

Yeri is braiding the grass again. “A Seer is infallible. If he has any weaknesses, they must be kept secret.” She gives Ten a pointed, dangerous look. “As far as anyone is concerned, the Seer is flawless. He _must_ be.”

These are the implications of imperfection: if the Seer is flawed, how can he see the flawless future?

...

Ten thinks back to the first time he stood on the temple stairs, staring up at the stone doors just as the sun was painting the grass in its last red, dying rays. Late summer. They weren't even 18 yet, and even though it was only a year ago it feels like much, much longer.

He remembers waiting on those stairs for the sunset, waiting until the stars were out and the moon was winking at him with one lazy, dark curve. He remembers the warm night air, remembers seeing Kun eventually emerge from the door, sliding through the smallest opening he could. He remembers Kun’s hand, warm and steady in his. He remembers a lot of things, right in that pause between wakefulness and sleep.

He closes his eyes and sighs. Memories are like lovers—they hold you tight and do not let go.

…

“Ten,” Doyoung says slowly, holding his door open only a fraction. “What is it that you need?”

Ten bows his head slightly. “I would like to request an audience with you, Advisor.”

Doyoung looks around furtively as if Ten is hiding someone behind him. He finally ushers him in. 

“What is it?” Doyoung asks, pushing all the papers on his desk into a large haphazard pile. Ten can’t be sure, but among them he sees yellowing maps marked in red. They do not show the Northlands.

“Advisor,” Ten starts, bowing his head again. “I would like to—”

“Drop the formalities and speak plainly,” Doyoung says curtly. “If you have something important to say, say it.”

Ten looks at him, noting the dark circles under his eyes, the messy state of his usually meticulous hair. Whenever he sees Doyoung in the Council meetings he seems so organized, upright, focused—now, he looks like a wreck.

“It's about the burned village,” Ten says. “Don’t you think it's odd?”

“What?” Doyoung says, jotting something down on a stray piece of paper before bunching the paper into a ball and throwing it somewhere onto the floor. He looks at Ten, frowning.

“Something doesn’t add up,” Ten starts, unsure of what to say. “The Isles usually fly their flag wherever they attack. They didn't this time. Why?”

“Are you asking me to guess?” Doyoung grumbles. He rubs at his face, leaving behind a smudge of black ink. 

“I’m asking you to consider it,” Ten says. “What if it wasn’t them?”

Doyoung looks at him, eyebrows raised. “What are you trying to say?”

Ten knows that there is no one smarter than Doyoung, not in this palace. He knows that if there is any small flaw, any piece of logic that does not fit, Doyoung will find it. He used to see Doyoung spend long nights in the library, reading over thick books of law. The ambition never made him much of a brother but he has never lost that fire or drive, and for once Ten finds himself counting on it.

“Okay, then,” Doyoung says, flipping through the papers on his desk. He never seems to leave his study. “Suppose it wasn't them. Who else would benefit from burning an entire town to the ground? Bandits?”

“I don't know,” Ten says, It is the truth. He didn't come here with any specific blame in mind, only the feeling that something was just not quite right.

Doyoung shakes his head, but his hands slowly still. The rustle of paper stops.

“I'll think about it,” he says finally. “You should go, Knight.”

Ten bows his head and leaves. He hopes that sometime, somewhere, this will make sense.

…

The dark-haired girl stands at the temple doors and glares at him. 

“You are not allowed inside,” she says firmly. “I do not care if you are a Knight.”

“This is important,” Ten says. “I won’t stay long.”

The girl scowls, crossing her arms over her chest. She judges him silently, eyes narrowing. “The answer is still no.”

All Ten can do is sigh. “Would you give him a message from me instead?”

“Perhaps.” She uncrosses her arms. “What is it?”

“Tell him I spoke with Doyoung,” Ten starts. “Tell him to write to me when he can.”

The girl purses her lips. “Fine. Leave.”

He does, looking back only once to see the dark-haired girl speaking to Yeri, red hair bright against the white. Blood on marble.

…

“Ten!”

The dark purple of Doyoung’s robes looks almost black in the sunlight as he rushes across the courtyard. He has several books tucked under his arm, covers fraying at the edges. 

Ten stands and sheaths his sword, the edge freshly sharpened. Across the courtyard, Mark and Johnny are training the next batch of hopeful Knights. He bows his head slightly but Doyoung barely acknowledges the act, ignoring any type of formality or greeting. 

“Did you find any type of flag or marker around the village?” he asks, glancing back at the boys yelling across the courtyard. “A red scrap of fabric, at the very least?”

Ten is sure he would have noticed if there was: the only colors that come to mind are all the muted grays of ash, of burning, of bone. He shakes his head, watching the light shift in Doyoung’s eyes.

Doyoung narrows his eyes slightly, looking over Ten’s shoulder. He is a man that holds all his cards to his chest, even if he knows that he can do nothing with them. “Hm. Thank you.”

“Is there a reason you’re asking?”

There it is again: that tightening of lips, that dark glance. Doyoung gives him a strained smile and places a hand on his shoulder. “No, just curious. Thank you.”

Ten nods his head and Doyoung rushes off, back inside the palace doors. A piece of paper flutters from between the stack that he carries, blowing across the dirt and grass. It plasters itself against his shoe and he bends down, picking it up. He means to run after Doyoung and give it to him, but the Royal Advisor is already long gone.

Blank. He turns it over a couple of times, then folds it up and stuffs it into his pocket.

…

The happy glow in Kun’s eyes does not glint gold. In fact, it does not glint any color at all—it is just a shine layered on the normal warm brown. It calms Ten and assures him that Kun is alright, if only for a moment.

“What do you see?” Kun says, pointing to the clouds. They are lazy, fluffy, just white blobs of paint against the halfway blue sky. The grass is soft beneath Ten’s head, softer still where Kun’s hair just barely brushes against his.

Ten squints at the clouds, trying to wrangle them into something that could be called a shape. A bird, maybe? It would have to be a very long bird, so maybe not.

“I don’t know,” Ten says. “Nothing, I guess.”

Kun grabs his hand. “Look again.”

Ten squints at the sky but it is no longer blue. It is bright red and orange, like flowers or sunset, vivid as paint. The clouds are thin and wispy, like they were dragged across the sky until they became thin shadows of their former selves. Ten blinks. The sky wavers and fades back to blue. The clouds are back to the original selves.

“What…” Ten blinks again, not trusting his eyes. “What was that?”

Kun smiles up at the sky. “The future.” 

A sunset or sunrise that they have not yet seen, gently tinted onto their present-day sky. Ten tries to hold onto the image but finds it fading away, like clouds blown sideways by the wind.

“Is this what you see?” Ten asks. “All the time?”

“Not all the time,” Kun says, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb along Ten’s palm. It makes him shiver. “Sometimes I see things superimposed like that, as if someone has added something extra.” His voice gets quiet. “It's usually not so bad.”

Usually. Ten rolls onto his side, unable to look away from the way Kun’s hair falls over his eyes, his white sleeves covering the grass. 

“How was I able to see it?” Ten asks, reaching out into the space between them with his other hand. Kun’s eyes are still glued to the sky. “How did you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Kun says. “I just thought it would work, and it did.”

He sits up suddenly, grabbing both of Ten’s hands. “Let me look into your future,” Kun says, and his eyes are bright. His hands are warm. “I want to try something”

Ten opens his mouth but doesn't know what to say. Instead, he watches Kun’s eyes shift from brown to gold, letting the afternoon wash over him like a wave. For a moment, there is no past or future, only the neverending present. The clouds are white. The sky is blue. They are holding hands.

“Close your eyes,” Kun whispers. His hands tighten around Ten’s.

Ten isn't sure what he’s supposed to be seeing, or if there is anything for him to see at all. Shapes swirl and in some of them he sees himself, reflected like he is staring into fragments of a mirror. He sees a crown. An altar. A white robe sliding between his fingers. A bloodied sword lying on a bed of roses. 

The strangest thing is that he can _smell_ the roses, cloyingly sweet, so real he could almost grab them—

He hears a gasp and an awful cry and feels Kun’s hands slide out if his, the connection between them severed. He opens his eyes to see Kun staring at him, a wide and terrified expression painting his features. He shakes his head fervently, one hand flying to his heart, still staring at Ten.

“I have to leave.” His voice is a command, almost fearful. He is shaking like a leaf, his eyes unnaturally bright, still halfway golden.

Ten feels his heart stutter, swinging back and forth like a pendulum.“What...what did you see?”

“I’m sorry,” Kun says, and he stands so quickly Ten almost trips backward trying to give him space. “I have to leave now.”

Ten can see Kun’s hands shaking, even as he buries them into the folds of white fabric that surround him, burial shrouds on a living person. He turns away, almost stumbling over his own feet as he heads back towards the temple. The sudden shift makes Ten’s head spin. Did he do something wrong? He reaches deep into the already-fading mages, the disquieting jumble of things he has not yet experienced. What was there?

 _What did he see?_ Ten wonders as he watches Kun’s figure recede, a speck of white among the blue and green of the sky and earth. _What did he see?_

For some reason, Ten smells roses.

…

  
  


“Yeri,” Ten pleads. “You have to let me in. You have to let me see him.”

For once, Yeri seems unsympathetic to his words. She lifts her chin up and looks him right in the eye, hand resting on the dagger at her hip. “No one is permitted to see him.”

The heavy stone doors are cracked open the smallest amount and from where Ten is standing he can feel a faint chill leak through the gap. He can see nothing beyond except a faint shadow on white stone, a form with no shape.

“Is he sick again?” Ten asks, trying to look through the crack. Yeri stands in front of him, almost menacing.

“It is none of your concern.” Her eyes narrow, and Ten realizes they are the same dark color as her sister’s. “Please leave.”

Ten gapes at her. “Why?”

Her mouth becomes a thin, hard line. “Turn around and leave before I push you down the stairs, Knight.”

Ten rests a hand on the hilt of his sword. He does not mean it as a threat but Yeri’s eyes flicker to the motion, to his sword, and then back up to his face.

The doors creak open and the dark-haired girl leans out, opening her mouth to speak. She pauses when she sees Ten, one hand curled around his sword.

She gives Yeri a heavy look. “Your assistance is required,” she says softly, glaring at Ten out of the corner of her eye. 

Ten bristles at the obvious distrust. The dark-haired girl disappears back inside and Ten grabs Yeri’s wrist.

“What’s happening?” he asks. Yeri pulls her wrist free and pushes him away.

“Leave,” she spits. “I won't ask you again.”

A thunderstorm brews in her eyes, dark and cold and uninviting, and Ten steps back. He should apologize but Yeri is already gone, the doors grinding closed, the time for apologies long gone. He stares at the heavy stone, ornately chiseled into concentric circles and looping designs, unsure.

The doors and walls are thick but Ten still hears frantic yelling, the clattering of metal against stone. He presses his hands to the stone, the carved designs digging into his palms. Someone lets out a cry that sounds like that of a wounded beast, a half-shout dying into a wail. A pain cry.

Even though the sound is animalistic, unfamiliar in its agony, Ten recognizes it. He could recognize Kun’s voice even if it was underwater.

“Let me in!” Ten shouts, beating his hands against the doors. The stone doesn't even vibrate when he slams against it. “ _Please_!”

No response from the other side. Ten sinks to his knees, hands trailing down the stone circles carved into the door. The raised design is sharp enough to cut but at that moment it doesn't matter—all Ten can do is press his forehead to the stone and try to block out the sound of Kun crying out. He should be there. He should be doing _something._

Another pained wail bleeds through the stone, muffled and choked off, but all Ten can do is kneel.

...

  
  


Mark is the first to notice the dark speck flying over the hills, through the gate and towards the palace. He squints, using a hand to shield his eyes. 

“Ten,” he says calmly, confused. “What does that look like to you?”

“It looks like a horse,” Ten says, standing next to Mark. “It doesn’t look like it has a rider.”

The horse is headed straight for the palace steps, showing no signs of stopping. From here Ten can make out some type of bundle on the horse’s back, draped over the saddle. As it gets closer, he realizes the bundle is actually the slumped form of a person, feet tangled in the stirrups.

Frantic shouting fills the courtyard as Mark and Ten run forward, stopping the rearing horse. Its eyes are so wide they are almost white, and its panicked whinnies fill the air. Mark pulls the figure off the horse, revealing the face of an old man. His shirt is covered in blood, torn all along the side.

Johnny appears like a shadow at Mark’s side, reaching out to press a hand to the man’s neck. He shakes his head.

“Where did he come from?” Yuta asks, frowning. “What is he doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Johnny says. The man wears a thin silver metal chain around his neck. “Probably one of the outer villages, near the Borderlands.”

The man is unarmed, old, harmless. He is also very much dead, and as Ten pulls the horse back he sees blood coating the saddle, turning the worn leather almost black.

“Johnny,” Mark says quietly. “There’s something in his hand.”

The man’s fist is tightly closed but Johnny eases the stiff fingers open, dried blood cracking around the knuckles. He pulls out a single red cloth, torn at the edge. It looks like it was ripped off of something, like a flag or cloak.

The blood staining the fabric turns it a supernatural shade of red, so bright it should be a sin. The cloth unfurls in Johnny’s hand, longer than it seemed before. It curls against the ground next to the man’s dead body. The silken material is so thin it is almost weightless.

Johnny frowns at the fabric and everyone leans closer to get a glimpse of what he sees. 

The red is painted with a single, smiling gold sun.

…

“This is an act of war!” A Council member says righteously, his high, nasally voice grinding along every nerve in Ten’s body. “How dare the Southern Isles attack another one of our towns! And then they send this, this.. _.taunt_ to our very own footstep! How _dare_ they!”

The red cloth is spread out in the middle of the table, the smiling golden sun on full display for everyone to see. The paint is cracked slightly and Ten resists the urge to reach out and peel off the flaking gold. 

“Your Highness,” Johnny says diplomatically. “Perhaps we are mistaken.”

“How can we be mistaken!” The Council member yells, looking at the King. “The flag of the Southern Isles in the dying hand of one of our own citizens. There can be no mistake!”

The King raises a hand and the entire room goes silent. He looks at Johnny. “Begin to assign Knights to the surrounding villages. I want double the number in each town and village.”

Johnny nods. 

“As for the rest, I will consult with the Royal Seer,” the King says, folding his hands in his lap. His purple robes glimmer with strands of silver, his crown all spikes, and all that metal gleams as he stands. “We will reconvene after that.”

Everyone in the room lowers their eyes as the King walks out. Ten does his best not to run out of the room behind him, to try to race to the temple before he can get there, to see Kun, to say—

What _would_ he say? Would it even be his place to intervene? Strangely enough, Ten never considered that they both served the same King. It never seemed to him that Kun served anyone but the future, elusive and cold, mysterious and unwelcoming.

Doyoung takes the end of the flag in his hand and lets it fall through his fingers. He writes something down, brow furrowed in concentration.

“I’m going to send Yuta home,” Johnny says beside Ten, oblivious to the storm swirling through his head. “He can protect his people best.”

“You should send Mark with him,” Ten suggests mindlessly. “They work well together.”

Johnny thinks it over for a moment. “You’re right. I’ll let them know.”

Ten sees Doyoung pick up his notebook and walk out the doors. The flag remains on the table, rumpled at the corner. Ten reaches over to smooth it out, the fabric cool under his fingers.

“What about me?” he asks. “Where will you send me?”

Johnny shrugs. “I would prefer you stayed here,” he says. “You’re one of our best. Of course, that may change.”

“Yes,” Ten says numbly. “I understand.”

Johnny stands. “I’m going to round up some of the others. Are you coming?”

Ten stands, hand resting on the hilt of his sword. It is warm to the touch as if it is somehow alive. “Of course.”

...

What does Kun tell the King? No one knows. 

What does the King tell Ten? This:

"I have decided to send you to the Borderlands," the King says, perched on his throne like a vulture. "This is an important assignment. The Southern Isles grow more hostile by the minute and we must have a presence there to protect our borders. You will lead a small contingent there to guard our people and our kingdom. You are the first line of defense."

The Borderlands. It is practically a death sentence, and they both know it. Anyone sent to the Borderlands now has very little chance of coming back.

“I understand that Johnny requires your assistance,” he says. “Because of this you will remain here for two weeks before heading to the Borderlands.”

“How long will we be assigned there, Your Highness?” Ten asks. He feels like he has been swallowing rocks, the rough stones tumbling over his tongue.

The King gives him a long look. “As long as is necessary. I am sure you will serve this kingdom well.”

Ten looks at him, stricken. The Borderlands are so far, farther from home than he has ever been. They are a barren land—a place on the edge of nothingness, the border to everything Ten has ever known. There is no definite end to anything about this journey. He could die in the Borderlands, vanish, kill. Anything could happen. Communication is rare, and by the time a message got to the palace the entire Borderlands could be a smoking, burnt heap.

Bodies piled among houses. Smoke dampened by rain.

There is a soft fluttering noise and Ten turns to see Kun at the doorway, hands folded in front of him. He walks through the room soundlessly, no head turning at his presence, and eventually stops beside the King. He doesn't look directly at Ten, and when he does he quickly looks away.

The Council members in the room bow their heads at the King’s order but all Ten can do is look at Kun, standing beside the throne in his white robes. He refuses to meet Ten's eyes, staring at the floor with his hands clenched tightly in each other and his back so straight he seems like a statue. He has the air of a guilty man, a man who regrets, and Ten can feel betrayal emanating off of him in waves. He clenches his teeth.

Ten bows his head and places a hand over his heart. "Yes, Your Highness. As you command."

…

"Did you tell him to send me away?" Ten asks, grabbing Kun's sleeve as he tries to push past him in the hall. "Did you do this?"

It is just the two of them in the corridor, the sunlight streaming through the windows with a buttery softness that does not match the fear churning in his stomach.

Kun doesn't look at him. "It is what fate has in store for you," he says blankly. His robes fall over his hands as he pulls away from Ten's grip. "It was not my decision."

Kun looks like a boy pretending to be an adult. The future has aged him from the inside out, and he speaks as if he is talking to a toddler and not his only friend, not someone who will readily die for him. Ten feels the weight of his sword at his hip and feels his heart plummet into his stomach like he has just swallowed it.

“What did you tell the King?” 

“It really isn't any of your business,” Kun responds calmly. A dying scream echoes in Ten’s ears, horrible and awful. He may not be able to see the future but the past comes at him with a clarity that is just the same.

“Are you upset with me?” Ten asks, knowing that Kun wouldn't do this because he was angry. He _couldn't_ do this, not to him.

Kun’s answer is blunt. “No.”

"What did I ever do to you?" Ten asks, skin feeling cold, anger snapping like frost. "What did I do to make you hate me?"

Kun is silent for a long time. "I don't hate you."

"Then what is it?" Ten hisses. Anger is unfamiliar to him but it sits in his heart like it belongs there, a different type of throne.

“You have two weeks.” Kun turns away from him, eyes flashing gold. "Be safe, Ten. The Borderlands are an unkind place."

He vanishes down the hall, robes flowing behind him like the death shroud on a corpse, and Ten tastes the sickening bitterness of blueberries on his tongue. The scent of dying roses surrounds him and does not dissipate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [king with a glass crown](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6TmGDaK4UCAoV0XsD6PENg?si=A4HXu5YGQIayemhGK_KGNw)  
> hmu on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nastaeyong)


	3. knight of swords

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys!! I originally meant to have this chapter up a whole lot earlier but everything got pushed back because i got a concussion oof ... hopefully updates will be a little more regular in the future! thanks for reading, and i hope you enjoy! :)

In two weeks, a rosebud can become a single, radiant flower. It can also die, picked apart by storms and clumsy hands. Never blooming—just dying. Immortal in that single, reckless regard.

Ten watches Yuta and Mark leave through the gate, the woods a wall that has no end. The trees block out everything beyond with a sheer wall of rustling leaves. Johnny places a hand on his shoulder and waves goodbye with the other. He acts as if they will all eventually return.

Two weeks. Ten cannot yet decide if he is the rosebud or the petals littering the ground.

…

The palace is just empty hallways now. The last vestiges of winter drain away and merge seamlessly into spring, white going green then going greener, the hills overflowing with wildflowers that are either at the beginning of their life or the end.

During the day Ten helps Johnny assign the Knights to villages, does the math to determine how many should stay, how many should go. How many weapons are needed. What defenses will work. It seems that the palace becomes an empty stone fortress overnight.

In the evenings, Ten sits in the fields and watches the sun set. The nights still carry the lingering chill of late spring but he just wraps his cloak tighter around himself, the thick material the same color as the night sky. Sometimes he wishes he wasn't alone. It is a castaway thought, there and gone.

The temple in the distance doesn't move from its spot on the hill. Ten doesn’t expect it to.

…

Kun is pale, too pale, when Ten sees him again. His white robes and his white face seem to be all the same, a person cut from one piece of paper, layered over and over again. He doesn't look at Ten, instead cradling a single red rose in his palm. The shape of it is like a bloody hole in his hand.

Ten knows. He knows what Kun is going to say almost before he says it, as if the words were delivered straight to his aching heart. Kun turns to him, eyes golden in the evening light.

“How are you?” he asks softly.

Ten knows.

“What did you want to talk to me about? You said it was urgent.”

At least, it had felt urgent. A plain piece of paper with the words _rose garden, sunset_ thrown on his pillow. He wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't seen it wedged between his bed and the wall.

Kun lets go of the rose, the stem gently dropping as it takes back responsibility for the flower it bore. Kun stands, hands clasped together in front of him. To anyone else he would seem just as he always does: composed, calm, ethereal. Only Ten can see the way his nails dig into his skin, the forced rigidity of his wrists. Kun is holding himself together, and only Ten can truly tell.

“I’ve been thinking,” Kun starts slowly. “About us.”

Ten knows. He wishes he didn’t.

“And?” His heart thumps in his chest, one last drumbeat before the battle, before the fall.

“I don't think we can do this anymore,” he says, every syllable slow and composed. “I don’t think this works.”

Ten steps closer; he doesn’t miss the way Kun looks away as he does. “Is it something I did?”

Kun shakes his head, and still he does not look Ten in the eye. “You’ve...you’ve made me so happy. But I don't think we can keep meeting like this.”

The words are a death blow to everything Ten has ever held dear. He doesn't even know what to say, what to feel, just wants Kun to look him in the eye.

“You never do anything without a reason,” Ten says, struggling to keep his voice level. “Tell me the truth.”

The sun sets in the silence between them, and as it dips below the horizon it casts Kun in its last dying rays. He looks like a ghost, half ready to disappear into the darkness.

This is, perhaps, the second lie that comes between them.

“Kun, did you—” the words choke him. “Did you ask the King to send me away?”

Kun is silent for a long time, the minutes stretching out into an eternity. His voice gives no answer, but his blank stare does.

“I simply told him what he needed to hear,” he murmurs.

“What did you tell him?” Ten asks, itching with impatience.

“You know I can't tell you that,” Kun snaps. He still won't look at Ten, his gaze fixed on a single, slumped rose. “It doesn't matter.”

“Look at me and tell me what’s wrong!” Ten yells, hands shaking. Kun steps back quickly, one hand raised as if he is protecting himself from a wild animal about to lunge. Ten realizes just a second too late the harshness in his voice, and shame spills into him like a bucket of hot water. 

“I’m sorry,’ he says hurriedly as if he could save the words back into his mouth and swallow them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you, I—”

Kun turns his gaze on him, and even though his eyes are unerringly brown, unbelievably human, they still hold a power over him that he cannot explain.

“You've been sent to the Borderlands,” Kun says bluntly, hands buried in the fabric of his robes. “What if, in the name of duty and loyalty, you die? What then?”

“Then that would be my duty,” Ten answers, chest burning.

Kun’s voice drops to a strained whisper. “What if you don’t come back?”

The question stuns him into silence. “Of course I’ll come back. I’ll always come back.”

“You could never say that for sure.” Kun lifts a hand as if he wants to touch him, and then absentmindedly runs it along his mouth instead. “Ten, I can’t see everything. And even if I could, even if all the future was laid out before me, do you think I would want it?”

“Kun, I—”

“I have a duty now,” Kun says. “I have a _responsibility_. I am chained to this place for the rest of my life,” he says. For a second his eyes widen, something like fear blazing through them like a lightning bolt. “No matter how long or short that may be.”

“Wherever I am,” Ten pleads. “Wherever I am I’ll find a way to come back to you. I promise. Kun, I _promise_.”

Kun almost smiles at him, but in that small expression is bitterness, sourness, unhappiness. His eyes glimmer gold, as if to say _I know something you do not._

“It’s better if we don’t see each other anymore,” Kun says, his voice somewhere in the midpoint between a whisper and a cry of pain. “Good night, Ten.”

He walks away, robes fluttering against the stone pathway. The roses tremble in the wind as he walks past. It seems that Ten is always watching him go, fading away from him in every picture he paints of them together. He hates it. He hates himself for not being strong enough to bring him back.

Ten watches him go and then stares at the spot where he saw him last. For every winter he spent in this palace, in these hills, in this garden, he never imagined the night could get this cold.

…

“Listen,” Johnny says, stacking swords along the walls of the armory. “If you want to stay, I can work something out.”

Ten doesn’t say anything at first, mind wandering in the glint of metal against wood. Each sword is stamped with the same rose design, the same claim to the kingdom. Ten has one just like all these others, Johnny has one, every Knight has one. They are all the same, all unerringly the same.

“It’s my duty,” Ten echoes hollowly, watching dim firelight fall across the rose insignia. It’s daytime, but the armory is still far too dark. 

Johnny gives him a despairing look, quickly hidden behind a stiff nod, a thin smile. “There is no higher honor than to be loyal to your King and your people.”

Johnny’s only flaw is his unwavering, reverent loyalty to the crown. Ten wishes his was the same.

…

The summon comes a week before Ten is to leave. He is feeding Star in the stables when a messenger hands him a small white envelope, practically shoving it in his hands before running off to complete another errand.

His heart beats with a single not of anticipation as he turns the envelope over, too soon fading into confusion. The paper is unfamiliar to him, the edges gilded. He tears it open and finds a formally written notice, requesting his presence before the King.

Before the King. Ten crumples the paper into a ball and bitterly considers feeding it to Star. She nudges the lump in his hand, curious.

“Not for you,” he says, throwing it in a nearby stack of hay. She snorts, disappointed.

The throne room is nearly empty, save for the one figure that seems to always occupy it. The King looks just as he always does, his silver crown spiked up to the ceiling, his purple robe like long puddles of paint that pool against the marble. To Ten, he has always been an old, old man, and he doesn’t even think he has been this close to his father in all the years he has been alive.

Ten kneels, the act as familiar as breathing. “Your Highness.”

Silence. Ten doesn't dare to meet the King’s eyes, less out of any type of cowardice and more out of a sense that he will not be able to control his own emotions. Like Kun, he cannot always control the shadows that flicker across his face.

“I have reason to believe that there is a conspiracy in this palace to dethrone me,” the King says, voice steady but haggard, the practiced speech of someone accustomed to being listened to. “Would you happen to know of any such thing?”

Ten stands. “No, Your Highness. I do not.” 

The King leans forward slightly as if he is searching for some small mark of dishonesty—a nervous shake, a vacant smile, an avoidant eye. He leans back, apparently satisfied.

“If you hear anything you are to come to me immediately,” the King says, folding his hands in front of him. His marble throne is all square angles, tall and rectangular. It should be uncomfortable but the King languishes in it as if it was made of velvet all over. 

Ten almost laughs. Instead, he says this:

“Your Highness, I doubt I will hear much. I will be in the Borderlands for the foreseeable future.”

_What if, in the name of duty and loyalty, you die?_

“Of course,” the King says. “I have heard the Captain has organized the force for the Borderlands with great care.”

The Captain. Ten has never called Johnny by his official title, but in the King’s mouth it sounds cold and tasteless, not reminiscent in any way of the man who bears it.

The King sounds like a snake, half dead but still hissing. Ten gives him a strained smile. “I am sure he did, Your Highness.”

The King’s eyes narrow. “Report back to me anything you hear, whether it be here or in the Borderlands.” Again the folding of hands, the glinting of a silver crown in the morning light. “I have reason to believe that such a conspiracy may run the course of this kingdom.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Ten places a hand over the rose insignia on his chest and bows his head, even as the shape of it feels like a brand against his open palm. “It is as you said. There is no higher honor than to be loyal to your King and your people.”

The King stares at him for a moment, but if he is shocked to hear his own words repeated back at him he does not show it. He raises his hand, waving it towards the door. A clear, wordless dismissal.

Ten bows again before turning his back on the King. The place hallways are as silent as a tomb.

…

“Is this it?” Ten asks Johnny bewildered. “Just three?”

“They were the only ones that would go,” Johnny says. “I can’t force anyone to go to the Borderlands.”

Of the three men standing in front of Ten, only one speaks. His Knight’s cloak is tattered at the edges, and his hair is gray. “People go to the Borderlands to die, son.”

One man is thin as a wisp, his cloak drooping about his shoulders. The other looks as if he should be at home with his parents, not wearing a sword. 

Ten turns to Johnny. “No. Send them home. I will go alone.”

“You can’t go alone,” Johnny says. “No one’s heard from the Borderlands in ages, you should at least have support—”

“Do they look ready?” Ten stands in front of the boy, just barely Ten’s height. “Gods, Johnny. These aren’t volunteers.”

Johnny’s mouth tightens into a line as he turns to the three Knights in front of him. “Stay if you want,” he says. “Only stay if you are sure.”

There is a heavy, frightening moment where Ten is absolutely sure none of them will walk away and he will have to live with that poor judgment of their character.

But then the boy pulls off his cloak and hands it to Johnny. He turns to Ten, head lowered. “I’m sorry, sir.” His voice is so young. “You can keep the money.”

Money?

Ten whirls on Johnny, anger rising in his chest like a wild bird above the fields. “You _paid_ them to volunteer? Are you crazy?”

Not even Knights. Not even entirely sure about what they were doing. In that moment, Ten has half a mind to rip off his own cloak and walk away as well.

“None of the Knights would volunteer, Ten.” The cloak bunches up in Johnny’s hand. “I did what I could.”

“There is not enough money in the world,” Ten seethes. “To send someone to die.”

He turns to the thin man. “Would you still go with me if I said you could have your money and stay home? Be honest.”

The man shakes his head, eyes glued on Johnny. 

“And you?”

The old man keeps his head high, meeting Ten’s eyes with a stony, tempered-steel gaze. “I used to be a Knight, a long time ago,” he says. “The Captain did not pay me.”

Ten sighs. “Sir, you should be resting. You have already done your duty to the kingdom.”

“Knights do not retire,” the old man says. “They die serving the crown or they live long enough to serve it again.”

The thin man wordlessly takes off his cloak and hands it to Johnny. He, too, vanishes from the palace grounds. In the distance, Ten can see the boy just now reaching the gate.

“Pay them anyway,” he says, Johnny carefully silent. He bows his head to the old man. “We will be leaving in a week,” he says, as respectfully as he can. “Will you be ready?”

“I am always ready,” the man says. He stands proud and tall. For some reason, Ten doesn’t ask for his name.

…

Two weeks was too much time. It was far too much time.

Ten does everything that really needs to be done in the first week, and he spends the second wandering the palace hallways like a ghost. He polishes armor that doesn't need polishing. He sharpens swords that do not need sharpening. He takes long walks around the perimeter of the forest, walking past the castle, walking past the temple, walking past the gate. 

He packs and unpacks. He watches the clock tick slowly, second by second and minute by minute. 

The one thing he wants to do with his remaining time is impossible. So he keeps on waiting. And waiting.

_What if you don’t come back_?

…

The palace has become a stone tomb. Half the Knights are gone, most of the nobles retreating to their extravagant country homes outside the palace. Even the servants are quiet like mice as they hurry from room to room, unseen.

Ten briefly considers what he should do. He could look for Johnny, ask him if he needs any help, but something in his chest pulls him away from the thought. He shouldn't have snapped at him before, not when he had been trying, not when his heart had been in the right place.

_And where is your heart, Ten?_

Somewhere on a hill, probably. Somewhere with thick, white stone walls.

He rounds a corner and sees two people in the hallway, heads bowed towards each other, whispering furiously. He ducks out of sight when he realizes it is Taeil and Johnny, crown prince and knight’s captain. Taeil is talking very fast, hand gesturing to the surrounding walls. His words are lost in their own echo, and Ten can only catch the faintest of whispers. _The people,_ he whispers furiously to Johnny. _What about the people?_

Johnny shakes his head. _I am doing my best,_ he whispers back.

Ten leans forward a little, and even from here he can make out the haggard expression in Taeil’s face, young and old all at the same time. He shakes his head and laces his fingers with Johnny’s. _Do better._

Johnny nods, lifting Taeil’s hand to his mouth. _Yes, Your Highness._

Ten presses his back to the wall as they separate, walking past each other as if they had not stopped to speak at all. He holds his breath, molding himself into an alcove and hoping that Johnny’s hawk eyes won’t see him in the shadows. Johnny passes without a sound and it is several long minutes before Ten allows himself to relax and peel himself away from the wall.

It isn’t Tens business; it isn't. But still, he hears the King’s haggard voice and the whisper of conspiracy, and he slowly attempts to connect the dots. It doesn't help, though, that the dots are few and far between. Why would Taeil, soon to be a king anyway, attempt to dethrone his father? Why would Johnny, loyal above all, turn against the crown he serves? It doesn't make sense, but then again, very little in Ten’s life does.

He turns to go somewhere else, maybe the courtyard, maybe the stables, and comes face to face with a familiar set of golden eyes.

“What—”

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” Kun says, eyes swirling from gold to brown. The effect is hypnotizing. “Excuse me.”

Ten is too stunned to say anything, instead stepping aside. He does not stop Kun in the hallway as he leaves. He does not speak to him at all. He watches him walk past with his head bowed, as quiet and pale as a wraith, either headed to or from that stone mausoleum he calls home.

Ten does not know how long he will be in the Borderlands. Maybe it will be years. Maybe it will be for the rest of his life. Still he says nothing, and the weight of that silence is a miniature mountain resting on his chest. Somehow, Ten manages to convince himself that Kun’s fading image, his golden eyes, his blank face, is none of his concern. He does it so, so easily.

…

He leaves in the morning. It takes a moment for the fact to sink in: he leaves in the morning. It is at least a week’s journey to get to the edge of the Borderlands, maybe more, maybe less if he doesn't stop. The old man (he introduced himself as Minseo, later, and he didn't seem as old then as before) will meet him at the courtyard in the morning. The morning. He leaves in the morning.

He watches the sun set from his window and then watches the moon rise. Both beautiful. Both only in the sky for a certain amount of time. He lights some candles to chase away the darkness, but the flicker of light only makes the shadows seem thicker.

Someone knocks softly at the door. Ten considers ignoring it, considers pretending he is asleep, but then the knock comes again. Insistent.

Ten drags his eyes away from the window and opens the door a crack. Kun peers back at him, pulling at the sleeves of his robes. His eyes dart up and down the hallway.

“Ten,” he says, voice hoarse. He says nothing else.

“You wanted me sent away,” Ten says crossly. “What are you doing here now?”

“I didn’t—” Kun shakes his head. “I had to see you,” he says quickly. “I had to see you at least once before you left.”

The hallway is empty as Ten pulls Kun inside and closes the door. Candles burn low on the bedside table, pieces of armor and equipment littering the floor. Ten hastily kicks several practice swords beneath the bed. 

“What do you want?” Ten asks. He sees Kun take a deep breath.

Kun walks the few paces between them, grabs Ten’s face in his hands, and kisses him. It shouldn't be anything new—they've kissed hundreds of times before, hundreds of different ways. But this, somehow, is different. Kun kisses him as if he is afraid to let him go, as if he is afraid that this is the last time they will ever see each other.

Ten pulls back and wraps his arms around Kun, unsure for just a moment. “Kun,” he murmurs. “What are you doing?”

“Please,” Kun says. It is the only thing he needs to say.

They kiss again, Ten gently pushing Kun against the wall, away from where his robes might brush the candles on the table. For a moment he relishes in how warm Kun is, even through all the layers of fabric he has wrapped around himself.

“I’m sorry,” Kun whispers against Ten’s mouth. “I’m sorry for everything.”

Here is the truth: there are times where Ten doesn’t understand Kun like he used to. Something always comes between them, something big and unforeseeable, and every rift comes back to this: what does Kun know that he doesn’t? Why does he sometimes look at Ten as if he regrets his presence? 

Here is the truth: sometimes, Ten hates Kun more than he loves him. Sometimes, he wants to blame him for things that are not his fault. Sometimes, he wants Kun to just tell him the truth, not the lies he reserves for everyone else.

The thoughts bubble and dissipate as Kun pulls him backward onto the bed, the two of them falling into a graceless heap of limbs and fabric. Ten pulls his arm back, afraid that he’ll elbow him in the head or knee him in the stomach, and Kun lets out a breathless laugh at his concerned expression. Gone are the days where Kun could easily wrestle him to the ground—now, Ten is afraid that any small move might shatter him like glass.

The candlelight reflects on Kun’s robes like they are canvas and meant to be painted over. Ten knows that Kun hates white, but there is still something about seeing him in that color that takes his breath away, something reminiscent of clouds and blankness. Everything else that comes between them melts in this moment, becomes something sugar sweet and glimmering.

“I love you,” Ten says suddenly. Kun pulls him down and kisses him slowly, purposefully.

“I know,” he says. He smiles, the sadness of the expression lost as all the candles wink out at the same time.

_How uncanny_ , Ten thinks as he pulls at the fabric wrapped all around Kun’s shoulders. _How strange._

Long, dark night. For once, the quiet is comforting.

…

Ten wakes early, long before the sun even dares to rise above the horizon. He pulls a single bag from beneath his bag, filled with things he needs: warm clothing. A set of daggers. Simple portions of dried bread and meat, wrapped in paper. He grabs his sword from where it hangs on the edge of his bed, still sheathed.

Kun is still sleeping. Ten hasn't seen him so peaceful in a long, long time.

_Just go,_ his mind tells him. _Just leave._

But he can’t. He rests the bag by the door, props his sword against the wall, and lies down on the bed, resting his forehead against Kun’s shoulder. Kun murmurs sleepily, blinking his eyes open.

"What happened to us?" Ten whispers. "What happened to running away? To leaving this life behind?"

Silence. Ten can feel Kun inhale and exhale, and resist the urge to wrap his arms around his waist. It is morning. He is leaving soon.

"We have responsibilities now," Kun finally says, and he seems so much older than before. "We aren't children anymore."

"You want this?" Ten asks, anger simmering lazily in his veins. He doesn't have the energy to bring it to a boil. "You _want_ to live in a temple for the rest of your life? Alone?"

"It doesn't matter if I want it," Kun says. "It's my duty."

"We could run away. We can still run away."

Kun with wild eyes standing in the middle of a field, voice breaking. Finally, _finally_ , Ten understands. He understands, but it is just too late.

"You can. I cannot." His words bite and he sits up, his robe falling haphazardly around his shoulders, fixing the fabric around his throat. Perfectly stiff. Perfectly still. The old coldness is back again, Kun’s eyes fixed in their golden, swirling stare.

"Kun, I…" his throat feels tight as if he is choking, the words trapped like doves in a cage. "I was supposed to be your house by the sea."

Kun looks at him and it seems that his gaze shifts in the light, brown to gold and back again. 

"I know." His voice is sad. He reaches out to rest his hand against Ten's cheek and Ten wants to lean into the touch, fall into Kun’s arms, but he cannot.

Fate comes between them, destiny comes between them, altars and stone temples come between them. Ten cannot see the future but he can see Kun turning away from him, and realizes he does not care about the future if he is not there with him. Kun looks like a ghost in white, his hand brushing Ten’s wrist as he stands. He pulls a red piece of fabric out of his pocket and places it on the bag by the door. “Goodbye, Ten.”

Ten wants to reach out to Kun as he leaves, but all he can do is watch him go.

He pulls on his shirt, his shoes, his navy blue cloak. He ties his sword around his waist. He picks up the red fabric and it unfurls to reveal a familiar smiling sun. It is a dangerous thing to have but Ten balls it up and shoves it into the bottom of his bag, beneath all the other bare things he believes he needs. 

He does his best to hold all the soft, hurting parts of him together as he turns to make the bed, mindlessly folding the sheets over each other. In a moment of weakness, he buries his face into his pillow and finds that it smells like dying wildflowers, and in that, like Kun.

…

“If you’re still there when the Winter Solstice comes, you come home.” Johnny wraps an arm around his shoulder. “You hear me? You come home. I don't care what anyone says.”

Johnny is not the sentimental type, but as he pats Ten’s back his eyes soften into something kinder, something wistful. “Be safe out there.”

Minseo is silent as he mounts his own horse. He looks to the sky and the steadily rising sun, with impatience.

“I’ll do my best,” Ten says, slinging his bag over Star’s back. The Southern Isles flag is tucked deep among his clothes, a small secret in the form of a piece of red fabric. “See you then.”

It’s not a promise, not quite.

How quickly things change. Ten remembers the murmurs that followed him when he was young, the ever-present fear of _insurrection, attack, war_. The words did not have half the meaning then that they do now, loaded, burning arrows against the sky. 

What can he do now except wait? What can any of them do?

“Why did it take so long?” Ten murmurs, pulling at the reins. Johnny raises an eyebrow.

“What do you mean?”

Ten just shrugs in response, pulling himself onto Star’s back.

Eventually, even seawater boils.

…

They travel for almost three weeks straight, only stopping to rest in those precious hours between midnight and dawn. The faster they travel the faster they can arrive. In Ten’s heart, some unknown thing whispers that the sooner he gets there, the sooner he can go home.

Minseo never seems to stop talking, and as they spend days riding across open fields and past villages and mountains and thin, rambling rivers everything seems to remind him of some bygone era. Some new and exciting story. 

It should annoy him but it doesn’t, and as Minseo launches into a long-winded story about some village Ten realizes just how quiet it would be without him. It drains his nerves, his energy, but the only other option is silence. Loneliness.

“Tell me,” Minseo asks one night, in that conspiratorial way the elderly speak when they think they know something. “Do you have someone back home? A girlfriend, perhaps?”

Ten pokes at the fire, watching the embers fly up into the dark sky. They do little to chase the ever-present chill of the night.

“No,” he says, poking at the fire again. Minseo looks disappointed.

“Kids these days,” he says, sighing. “Wasting your youth! Why, when I was your age—”

He launches into a tale about a girlfriend he used to have many decades ago, and Ten yawns. 

...

Eventually, the villages are far and few between. Eventually, Ten does not see anyone at all. The rivers and fields give way to rock and dusty gray dirt. It is an unkind place, bleached of life. There are few trees and even fewer people. Ten blinks the dust out of his eyes and continues forward.

Despite all this, they have not seen the absolute dust and cold of the Borderlands.

The journey plagues him. Every night he dreams of places he has not been, people he has not seen. He dreams of a man without a mouth, his eyes glowing silver. He dreams of Kun, sitting upon an altar with his hands raised to the sky. Sometimes he speaks to Ten, the words lost in the murky consciousness between them.

_Be strong_ , Kun whispers, voice like mist. _Be strong, Ten._

Ten wakes before sunrise every morning, and as the sun rises behind them he feels chills. The sunlight paints the sky awful, cursed gold.

...

“There isn't much, is there?” Minseo grumbles, huffing as he slides off his horse. He rubs at his knee. “Riding is murder on the joints.”

If there is one thing to say about the Borderlands, it is just that. There isn't much. 

Ten looks up at the gray sky, thick with rain clouds, the sun a visitor that rarely comes. The dusty soil holds nothing save for weeds, thin blades of brown grass, and sickly flowers. There seems to be no one in any of the haphazard houses, each one dark and silent.

“Hello?” Ten calls out, his voice carried by the hollow breeze. “Is anyone there?”

Maybe a curtain rustles, but Ten cannot be sure if anyone is there. The wind keeps blowing. Everything seems so vast but there is a pressure in the air that holds him down, pins him to the ground, keeps him quiet. Half-empty houses. Soft, wailing wind.

There is a small inn among all the gray, lifeless buildings, the windows all dark and shuttered. Ten knocks on the door, once, and the resounding echo is enough to make his bones rattle. He knocks again and someone pulls the door open, an unsmiling man whose lip curls when he sees them. He gives them a dissecting glare as he takes in their navy cloaks and swords.

“What do you want?” he asks rudely, closing the door just enough to make it difficult for them to barge past him. 

“Um…” Ten stares at him. “Do you offer lodging here?”

The man looks up at the word INN painted above the door in fading black letters. “I guess I do. And?”

“Can we stay here?” Ten asks, the man’s dismissive nature making all the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The man opens the door.

“I don't serve your kind,” he says, slamming the door closed, the wood snapping just inches away from Ten’s face. Minseo sighs.

“You can’t be so nice with these folks,” he says gruffly, knocking on the door again. The innkeeper pulls the door open once again, expression unchanged.

“We have been stationed here on orders of the King,” he says, voice dropping into something mean and forceful. “You are required by law to assist us.”

“The King’s laws don't apply out here,” the man says, spitting on the ground. 

Minseo calmly rests his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Is that so?”

The innkeeper glares at them, opening the door. He plasters a smile on his face that is as thin and unwelcome as the dust. “Come on in.”

…

“You shouldn’t threaten them,” Ten says, watching Minseo unpack. His own room is just down the hall, every room empty except for the two that the innkeeper had begrudgingly placed them in.

“It's the only way they understand,” Minseo says. “They’re lawless people.”

“But they are still people.” Ten crosses his arms. “The ones we are supposed to protect.”

Minseo shakes his head. “You have a lot to learn, kid.”

Ten doesn’t know what else there is to learn: protect the people, serve the kingdom, serve the King. It's funny how everything boils down to those three, simple things.

That night Ten pulls the Southern Isles flag out of his pack, watching it coil and unfurl in the candlelight. His room is dusty and small but it has a single window, open wide to let the moonlight in. 

The smiling sun tires him, and after watching the silk flutter in the air he curls it all back up and stuffs it beneath his mattress. He lies down, his bones so weary that it hurts him to relax. He sits up, back against the wall, and watches the moon rise until he falls asleep, cloak wrapped around him like a blanket.

…

  
  


_Are you sleeping?_

Ten reaches out into the watery haze of the dream for a familiar figure, a familiar face with gold eyes. 

_Oh, you are._

The dream shifts and becomes black trees that rise to impossible heights, strange creatures in red nestled among the branches. He pulls his sword out, afraid that they will attack, and sees the stamped insignia filled with color. Bright red against steel.

_Where am I?_ He murmurs into the gray night. 

_You’ll know soon enough,_ the voice says, warped and unfamiliar. Beneath his feet, the ground becomes red sand and water, a living slush that pulls him under. Instinct makes him claw for the sky, but the trees block out the moon, the creatures in red just watch him yell.

He cries out and jolts half-awake with his back against the wall. The wind slams the window shutter against the wall. He stumbles over and bolts it shut.

_Stay strong, Ten._

...

If there is one thing to say about the Borderlands, it is this: Ten has never met people more hostile or unkind.

But maybe it isn't that, he thinks, walking to the outskirts of the small village. A wire fence is stretched along the border, the wood posts rotting and tipping into the dirt. Maybe they have a reason to be wary; to be scared.

Ten looks over his shoulder at the sound of a closing door and sees the curious eyes of a child, a curtain being pulled shut by a hidden hand. The wind blows dust over the fence, and if Ten listens he can almost hear a voice carried by the breeze.

There is a small shack right at the fence, roof falling in. As Ten gets closer he can see a rose insignia painted on the side, edges blurred and dripping. 

A knife sticks out of the wood, handle worn. Surrounding it is a hundred other holes, slice marks, gouges in the wood. He pulls it out and notices how light the hilt is. It is made of a strange material, crystalline, somewhere between wood and gemstones.

He tucks the knife in his cloak and moves on along the fence, eyes turned to the south.

…

During the day, the small village in the Borderlands is dry and featureless, all gray and cold. He sees people move quietly among the dust, going about their lives as people usually do. He sees small families, working quietly. Occasionally he hears the laughter of children, high and happy but quickly whisked away by the heavy, crushing silence. The wind blows. It keeps blowing, always to the south.

At night, however, the Borderlands transform.

It doesn't take long for Ten to notice the people that bleed into the village after sunset, people that do not live there or stay. For the most part, they seem to be bandits and merchants, all mismatched personalities and loud laughter. Ten watches from the window of the inn as they crowd the streets, the small tavern. He knows, eventually, they will want the inn. And he knows, eventually, they will learn of the Knights there. 

It happens sooner than he expects. 

“Knights!” Someone yells from the street. “Are you in there, you cowards?”

Laughter echoes up to his window. Ten lies in bed and stares at the ceiling, hands folded over his stomach. He’s awake, perhaps too awake, and hears glass shatter against the wall outside.

“Are you a coward?” Someone else yells. “Come out and face us!”

For a brief moment Ten worries about Minseo. Wonders if he could hold himself in a fight.

More glass. More laughter. Ten closes his eyes, but he does not sleep.

…

The shack by the fence is just as untouched as it was before, the red paint cracking. As he draws closer he sees the door halfway open. He places a hand on the wood and finds it cold, stiff, as still as he expected. He pulls the door open and finds nothing but a small cot, a small table, a window with torn curtains. Everything is covered in the finest sheen of dust, like a blanket meant to preserve.

No one has been here in a while. The dust tells him that.

He exits the shack and sees something glint along the previously empty wall. It is another knife with a strange, crystalline handle.

…

Children are laughing, and Ten moves to the sound like a moth drawn to a high, perilous flame. There’s a woman outside her home, her two children chasing each other with twigs. Every once in a while they slash at each other and there’s a yelp as a twig smacks against an exposed leg or arm. Just children. 

The woman turns, perhaps to tell the kids to be careful, and then sees him on the other end of the street. Her expression falls and she whispers something to the children, pushing them towards the door.

Ten’s voice catches in his throat, and for a second he thinks he is going to choke on the dust in the air. “I mean you no harm.”

The woman regards him warily, a broom clutched in her hands as if she could use it as a weapon.

“Who can be sure?” the woman says, voice gravelly. A side effect of the dust, Ten supposes.

He is silent.

“Knights have never protected us,” the woman says. “You bring misery with you, every single time.”

“There’s a war coming,” Ten says, the words ambling into the air. Are they true? He does not know.

The woman shakes her head.

“You act like war ever stopped coming,” she says rudely. “What does the King give us? What protections does he offer? His people are starving, poor, weak, and what does he do? Send a Knight or two to protect us?”

_There is no higher honor than to serve your King and your people._

“If you know what's best, Knight, you would turn and leave.”

She goes inside, shutting the door behind her so softly he wonders if it shut at all. Only then does he turn to leave.

…

Night. Voices filter up from the streets.

Ten pulls a piece of paper out of his notebook, a pen. He isn't sure who he intends to write to or if he is going to write at all. 

His first thought is Kun: Kun who haunts his dreams like a phantom, unreal but there all the same. What would be the point, he wonders, pressing the pen to the paper. What would be the point?

His resolve wavers, even as the words form in his mouth, in his head. _I miss you,_ he could write. _I miss you._

Even then, even with his fingers shaking and creasing the paper, he can't do it. For all he knows, Kun would read the words and immediately burn them to pieces, uncaring and angry. For all the wistfulness he carries, all the longing and pain, there is bitterness as well. It clouds his vision for a second and he has to look upwards, take a deep breath.

So he doesn’t write to Kun. Instead, he writes Johnny a short message.

_The people here are bitter and suffering_ , he writes. _They do not trust the King or the Knights. Is there any way we can help them?_

And then he adds _I will be home for the Solstice,_ even though it is just the end of spring and winter is a long, long way away. He considers writing about the knives, the little shack at the border, but doesn’t. Something tells him he shouldn’t. A small voice, barely there.

He sends the message to the palace with a dusty messenger on a gray horse. They vanish among the gray.

…

Ten doesn’t quite know what Minseo does during the day, but at night he ambles along the street, no cloak. To stop any trouble, he says. 

_It's better they don't recognize me,_ he says lightly. When he says the words there is a cruel glint in his eyes, one that Ten had never noticed before.

Ten lies awake and stares at the ceiling as voices fill the street outside. It's quieter tonight. There is a storm coming, Ten supposes. It blows in from the South.

Low voices, and then shouting, one voice rising above the rest. Ten sits up for a moment, listening.

A rock sails through Ten’s window and thuds against the floor. That gets him out of bed and to the window, peering down at the street below. From here he can see Minseo, gray hair and sword, and a man that he does not recognize. He has a knife in his hand and reaches into the dirt for another rock.

“I hate your kind!” the man yells, voice thin. His words slur together, angry but confused. Drunk, perhaps.

Ten grabs his sword and heads outside. It is one of his first mistakes, but he does not realize it. The second mistake is unsheathing it. 

As he heads outside another rock goes sailing by his head, hitting the wall. The street is unusually empty for this time at night.

“He’s drunk,” Minseo says, but that cruel glint is there. “Just rowdy.”

“You killed my brother!” The man yells, turning on Minseo with the knife. “Your kind brings nothing but trouble!”

Ten gives Minseo a sideways glance. “What’s he talking about?”

Minseo shrugs. “He probably doesn't even know where he is.”

“Sir,” Ten says, keeping his voice as level as he can. He lowers his sword. “We mean you no harm.”

_We mean you no harm._

The man gives him a wild look, eyes crazed. “Go back! We don’t want you here!”

Minseo says something but it is lost to Ten in the sudden wind. The man’s eyes narrow and his hand tightens around the knife, fingers almost white.

“This is my home!” the man yells. “You don't belong here!”

“Sir,” Ten says. “Please—”

He lunges at Ten, knife out, face red and angry, and Ten does the only thing he ever learned to do. He lashes out, unintentionally, and it is one breath too long before he realizes the man has gone completely, utterly, still. His eyes widen in a mask of surprise, frozen.

He slides off the edge of Ten's sword, hands clasped over his side. Blood, red as paint and half as thick, seeps through his fingers.

_We mean you no harm,_ a small voice whispers.

The gray sky, the gray earth, a steel sword: Ten steps back, feet catching in the dirt. Blood drips onto the dusty soil and pools in small, perfect drops. The earth doesn't want it, will not let it soak through.

"Oh, gods, I—" Ten drops his sword, pressing a hand over the man's side. His blood is warm, awfully so, and it stains Ten's fingers as quickly as it would paper. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

Minseo shakes his head. "Ten. He's gone."

The man is staring up at the sky, eyes open. The dark sky and the hollow gray clouds are perfectly reflected in his blank expression.

"I didn't mean..." Ten lets the man go, body thudding against the ground. Dirt curls into the air, fine as smoke. "I didn't mean to kill him."

"These are war times," Minseo says calmly. "Did you think that you could fight a war with a clean sword?"

The way he says the words makes Ten's stomach turn and flip, makes his insides curl into themselves. A war. Are they truly at war? Maybe, but not here. Not in this place, not on this dusty patch of soil.

A clean sword versus a dirty one, a life versus a killing.

"He was just a civilian, he was angry, I shouldn't have..." Ten feels something in his chest swell and pop, his stomach heaving. "Oh, gods."

Minseo rests a hand on his shoulder. "It was an honest mistake, son. He could have hurt you.”

Ten's mind replays the moment in agonizingly slow motion. A man with a knife, thin and weak and wild. Scratches heal, wounds heal, but death...he could have done something else. _Should_ have done something else.

"Knights are supposed to _protect_ ," Ten hisses, throwing Minseo's hand from his shoulder. "We are supposed to _protect_ the people," he says again. "Not kill them."

Minseo says nothing, just shrugs. "You should clean your sword."

The sword lies right where Ten left it, the steel red and wet. Blood seeps into the stamped rose insignia, coloring the design. Coincidence, maybe. Or some thoughtful, morbid design.

He picks it up, the weight of it so much heavier than before.

Something nags at Ten, something important but out of reach. “What did he mean when he said you killed his friend?” Ten asks slowly. “He seemed to recognize you.”

Minseo shrugs again. "Who knows? I've never seen him before."

It is a lie, plain and simple, and they both know it.

The drying blood on the ground forms hard, black clumps. Ten sheaths his sword and kneels, pulling the man's eyelids closed.

...

That night, he burns the man's body. The soil is too thin for burials. Minseo does not join him.

The heat of the fire burns his eyes but he does not look away. The heat of the fire burns but he does not step back.

"There is no greater honor," Ten murmurs to himself. "Than to be loyal to your King and your people."

The fire roars back in response, and the last dying cries of embers follow the cracking of wood and bone. Ten reaches a hand out to the fire, not close enough to touch but close enough that the skin on his palm prickles with discomfort. The urge to stick his hand in the fire is overwhelming, almost to the point where he can see himself doing it. Can see his hand burning, the fire eating away at it like a last, sacred meal.

_Don't do that,_ a small voice whispers. _It would hurt._

Ten pulls his hand back, ears straining to hear, and the voice fades.

"I want to go home," Ten says to the fire, the words pulled out of him, small and unsure. The fire stretches into the dark night sky, smoke gray as the dirt.

_I know,_ the small voice whispers. _I know, Ten._

...

Ten cleans the blood out of his sword with a damp cloth and a shaking hand, scrubbing it off the blade, scraping it out of the rose insignia. His unsteady fingers struggle to work the cloth into the insignia, and even when he is done he still sees flecks of black, smears of red.

Penance, Ten thinks, holding the sword up to the light. The rose insignia still gleams a faint, rusty red. Penance.

Memories are like jailers: they imprison you.

...

Summer passes like the slow tide of a glacier's melt. Just when he thinks it is over there is another hot day, another thunderstorm, another cloudless sky. He has lost time, he thinks. He has lost it and cannot find it.

Bandits are always on the outskirts of the village, in their ragged clothes and makeshift weapons. They do not come any closer, and Ten doubts it is less out of respect or fear and more out of patience. They are waiting, he thinks. They are waiting for something.

Ten dreams at night and finds he cannot stop. He dreams of the palace, of high stone ceilings, of the color white draped over everything he has ever loved. He dreams of a single dying man, eyes wide with surprise.

Sometimes he dreams of Kun, and the images are all the same: beautiful, dreamlike, nightmarish.

_I hate you,_ Kun whispers in one dream as he runs down a dark, narrow hallway. The floor is red stone, and it turns to sand beneath his feet. _Do you believe me?_

_No_ , Ten screams. _I don't hate you._

He sees Kun, his hair white as snow, his eyes the solid gold of coins, of crowns, of kings.

_I hate you,_ Kun repeats, his voice growing and expanding like a breath. _Do you understand that?_

_No,_ Ten says, feet slipping into red sand. _No_.

_I hate you,_ Kun says softly, his face unrecognizable. Blood drips from his mouth and onto the floor. He grabs Ten's hand, and his touch burns like a wildfire. Ten screams, and keeps screaming.

_Wake up._

Ten's eyes snap open and he launches himself upright, heart beating like a drum. He clutches his hand to his chest, the phantom pain of burning still there. The moon is barely a sliver in the sky outside the window.

_Do you hate me?_ A voice whispers somewhere in the night. Not real, but not a dream, either.

"Yes," Ten answers, the word falling from his lips before he notices he has said it. His chest aches and he slowly lies back down, staring at the ceiling. It seems to him as if the shadows want to bury him, but already they are carrying the dream away. He remembers none of it now. He has lost it like everything else.

In a moment he is asleep again, and the night is black and dreamless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [king with a glass crown](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6TmGDaK4UCAoV0XsD6PENg?si=A4HXu5YGQIayemhGK_KGNw)  
> hmu on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nastaeyong)


	4. the lovers

The summer turns to fall, turns to winter, and the days move so fast that Ten wonders if he has been asleep.

He dreams. He dreams during the day, during the night, during every moment he is awake and asleep. He dreams of red sand and glass, shifting and breathing like a beast.

He dreams of Kun. This is the most important part.

…

“Are you heading back to the palace?” Minseo asks, chewing on something. It looks like a piece of bark, something with crunch and stem, and the sound of it makes Ten’s stomach turn. His eyes are flinty, something that Ten has learned not to trust.

“Yes,” Ten says quietly. The moon is out, the nighttime a safer entity for him to move in. He doesn’t talk to people in the Borderlands. He does not do anything that isn’t asked of him. Some dim part of his mind, something jaded and forgotten, murmurs that Kun would be disappointed.

The other parts of his mind, bright with anger and disappointment, say _he is not here_.

“A rather long journey for a couple of days in the King’s company,” Minseo says, voice gravelly. “You must have a good reason.”

The prying nature of his questions makes the back of Ten’s neck tingle. “My motivations are none of your business.”

Minseo shrugs. Outside the open window, they can both hear people in the streets, talking, laughing, shouting. They, too, move easier in the darkness. Easier for all of them, Ten supposes, his bag packed in the corner, the red flag tucked into his cloak. Easier. Easiest.

He leaves the next morning. Winter comes quicker in the gray.

…

_Tell me,_ the voice in his head whispers, a constant reminder that there is no one outside of him that he can trust. _What do you fear?_

“I don’t know,” Ten murmurs to himself. Star flies swift across the open fields, a simple creature that requires so little of him it should be a crime. A steady companion that he has never given much thought to. These days he feels guilt spiking at him in unfamiliar ways, in bursts and flashes. 

A familiar face flickers in his head: a dead man, eyes wide. He blinks and the image is gone.

_You know that isn’t true, Ten._

“And how would you know,” Ten mutters, hands tightening on the reins. Something shrugs in his head and then dissipates. Silence.

It is colder, now. As he travels he sees the disparities between the things he knows and once thought he knew, the veil removed from his eyes with careful, awful clarity. As he heads towards the palace the people seem happier, the villages cleaner, the world brighter. In truth, it is all an illusion meant to placate. He knows that now. 

He rides past a town made of ash, black buildings waiting to crumble. A familiar checkpoint.

…

_I promise myself a week,_ Ten murmurs into that murky darkness of dreams, to a voice that is too familiar to recognize. _That is it. That’s all._

He twirls a knife in his hand, the hilt like crystal. One of many stabbed into the wood of that old shack. After the first two, he had taken no more and left them embedded in the wall. He never told Minseo.

He pulls a blade of grass off the ground and presses it against the curved blade with the pad of his thumb. It comes away in two clean pieces. Even.

 _Only a week?_ The voice whispers back. _You won’t have enough time._

_Time for what?_

Silence and then red sand, the dripping sound of water falling on stone. He sees the images so clearly that he must remind himself he isn’t asleep; he is not yet dreaming. He presses his bare thumb against the knife until blood wells up along the edge.

 _You’ll know._ The voice wavers. _You’ll know._

…

  
  


It doesn’t feel like home. He doesn’t feel like he’s going home. He doesn’t feel like he has a home at all.

The winter wind bites, its teeth even more vicious here than it was in the gray stone of the Borderlands. When the winter comes it comes suddenly and violently, not with calm snow but with storms of ice and thunder. The journey back greets him with hail and wind and he wraps his cloak tighter around himself.

He does not know what day it is when he finally arrives. He only knows that as he watches the high stone towers of the palace he once called home rise into view he feels as if he is walking to a grave he has dug for himself. He sees familiar figures in the courtyard, blue-cloaked.

He does not think _I’m home_ . Instead, he thinks _I wonder what it's like to live in a tomb._

He thinks he knows the answer to this question already.

Someone runs out to him, a tall figure that proudly wears his sword at his hip. Even from here, Ten can recognize Johnny, despite the bandage on the side of his neck. He gets off his horse, patting her thoughtfully on the nose. Small gratitude, too soon vanishing in the cold.

Johnny looks at him for a moment, a smile growing on his lips. He pulls Ten towards him in a warm, familiar hug.

“Good to have you back,” he says.

Ten swallows in response. He doesn’t trust himself with words.

Johnny lets go, observing him at an arm’s length. His eyes run over him like he is checking a list—all parts intact, all parts whole. Ten distantly wonders if he looks different, if maybe there is some small thing that would warn Johnny away. Apparently not, since Johnny claps him on the back and steers him and Star towards the stables.

“How have you been?” he asks.

“What happened to your neck?”

After a moment Johnny shrugs, fingers ghosting over the dressing. “A practice accident,” he says calmly. Ten wonders if Johnny has become a better liar in all the months he has been away.

“But don’t worry about me,” Johnny says brightly. “How have you been? How are things in the Borderlands?”

“Not good,” Ten says, letting the statement blanket both questions at once. “How are things here?”

A breath. “About the same.”

“Are we still preparing for war?”

Another breath, deeper this time. Heavier. “These things take time, Ten.”

Ten rubs a hand along Star’s side as he removes the saddle. She snorts happily at her newfound freedom. “I guess you know best.”

Johnny tilts his head, eyes glimmering with a sudden realization. Ten can tell from the way his mouth twists that it is not altogether pleasant. “You’ve changed.”

“Haven’t we all?” Ten responds dryly. He walks out of the stables and back to the palace, leaving Johnny behind. Not the way to treat a friend, but he is tired, the weariness in his heart more so than his bones.

He wanders to what was once his room and finds the door open. Out of the two beds, one is already occupied—a boy with round glasses sits there. He is polishing his sword, and even though he has grown quite a bit taller, Ten still recognizes him.

“Ten?” Jisung asks, mouth a small round “o” of surprise. He pulls off his glasses. “You’re back!”

Ten smiles at him, but he feels like a liar. He feels unclean and unwhole as he rests his sword on the empty bed.

“I am,” Ten says quietly. “It's good to be back.”

…

He promised himself he would stay only a week. The Winter Solstice is on Saturday.

The voice in his head has been surprisingly silent. He often misses its company, especially as he walks the silent hallways to the throne room. The walls are white, creamy and golden with light. His tired eyes see it differently now, and every detail stands out to him clearer: the high, arched ceilings, the curved windows, the stone floors veined with darker colors.

Voices come from the throne room, hushed. Ten creeps towards the door and is stunned to find it unguarded and slightly open. A curious mistake to make.

He doesn't stand in front of the door to peer into the room. Instead, he stands at the hinge, looking through the crack made by the door’s open angle. There is a man dressed in gray talking to the King. It is not the gray of the Council. The man wears no robes or insignia. There is nothing to signify who he is or what he does.

The man says something else, words lost. He bows. The King dismisses him with a bejeweled hand, old and thin.

The door opens, and Ten flattens himself against the wall, back straight. He looks forward, sets his face in stone and does not blink as the man walks by him. Their eyes meet for a single moment. There is nothing in the man’s face to betray who he is.

The door remains open behind him. Ten stands in the doorway as the King beckons him forward. Wrinkles line his face in multitudes, more than Ten has ever seen. He allows himself a small pleasure in knowing that his father only keeps aging, aging and dying.

Ten kneels, one hand over his heart. “Your Highness.”

“Ten,” the King responds, voice rough as rock. “I did not expect you home so soon.”

“The Captain requested my presence for the solstice,” Ten responds, still kneeling.

“I see.” The King’s fingers tilt upward, and Ten follows their movement, standing. “Have you any news from the Borderlands?”

There and then, Ten makes the conscious decision to lie. The words come as easily as breathing.

“No, Your Highness,” Ten says smoothly. “The Borderlands show no conspiracy towards you, and there is no violence from the south. There is nothing to report except the great displeasure of the people there.”

The King only seems marginally satisfied with the answer. “Nothing else?”

 _I killed a man,_ Ten thinks. _I killed an innocent man and your people hate you._

The curved knives are tucked beneath his mattress in his room, far from prying eyes.

“There is nothing else, Your Highness.”

The King purses his lips and waves Ten away. He bows and leaves, heart beating so slowly it could have been made of ice.

…

_You know what you want to do,_ the little voice in Ten’s head says. This time it is entirely his own. _You know what you are trying to avoid._

Ten ignores it and instead asks Jisung to show him what he’s learned. Precision. Force. Jisung's smile is lopsided and friendly as he shows Ten just how close he can swing a sword at a candle, turning the blade at the last second so that the air douses the flame. It seems effortless, and Ten realizes that maybe Jisung has already surpassed him. Prodigal son.

“Where are you from?” Ten asks one night, lying in bed as Jisung reads a book quietly across the room. Jisung looks at him and pushes his glasses up his nose to prevent them from sliding off. Silence comes like a wall between them, thicker than stone or steel.

“The Borderlands,” Jisung says quietly, as if it is a shameful, shameful thing. “My mom wanted me to come.”

Ten stares at the ceiling, hands folded over his stomach. “Is she still there?”

“Yes.” Jisung closes his book. “She told me to train hard so that when I come home, I can protect them.”

“Do you miss her?”

The prodigal son is gone, and in his place is just a frightened boy, too far from home. “I’m always worried about her,” he whispers. “I’m...”

Ten doesn’t need him to finish the sentence. He can almost hear the words in the air.

_I’m afraid that when war comes, I won’t be there to protect her._

Ten doesn’t trust Minseo to protect the Borderlands. Maybe he shouldn't have left him alone. 

“Keep training,” Ten says, blowing out the candle on the nightstand next to him. 

…

The door to Doyoung’s room is perpetually guarded, and as Ten knocks he feels the heavy weight of armed gazes. His neck tingles with the feeling until the door swings open. Doyoung’s hands are stained with ink, and the dark circles under his eyes betray too many nights with not enough rest. He raises a single eyebrow at Ten, curious.

“What do you want, Knight?” Doyoung glances at the guard at the door.

“The Captain sent me to ask about metal expenses,” Ten says, the lie rolling off his tongue with practiced ease. Doyoung opens the door further and lets him in, and he does not say another word until it is locked firmly behind them.

“Did Johnny really send you?” Doyoung asks, rubbing his hands together. Ink smears his wrists.

“No,” Ten admits. “But I wasn’t quite sure what words would let me in.”

Doyoung waves his hand in the air, rearranging papers. His office seems to be even more of a wreck now than it was the last time Ten saw it. The windows are covered with paper, making all the light that filters through a sickly off-white. “The King keeps me under constant watch,” he says. His eyes meet Ten’s and he gives him a wry smile. “For my safety, of course.”

Ten reaches into his cloak and pulls out the knife carefully hidden there, wrapped in black fabric. He hands it to Doyoung. “I found this in the Borderlands.”

Doyoung’s hands are steady as he pulls back the fabric. The strange knife rests among the fabric like a jewel, blade and hilt shimmering. Doyoung inhales sharply.

“It’s of southern make,” he says, covering it back up. “The glass in the hilt is their signature.” He looks away and flips through the drawers in his desk for a clean sheet of paper. “Where did you find it?”

“It was stabbed into an old wooden shack. I took this one, but it seems that someone keeps leaving them.”

Doyoung hums and scribbles something on paper, ink splattering everywhere. It is uncharacteristic of him to be so careless.

“It could be a taunt,” Doyoung says, sliding the paper into an envelope and sealing it shut. “Or it could be a message.” He hands the envelope to Ten, the front completely blank, the wax on the seal still drying. “Give this to Johnny as soon as possible.”

Ten turns the envelope over in his hands. Curiosity must be evident in his eyes because Doyoung taps the paper and scowls. 

“Straight to him,” Doyoung says. “Do not leave it anywhere. Understand?”

Ten nods and Doyoung’s shoulders sag in barely concealed relief. “Thank you for telling me, Ten..”

Ten tucks the letter and the knife into his cloak. “Of course,” he says softly. He looks towards the door as if he can see the outline of the guard outside. “I am at your service, Royal Advisor.”

He bows his head and unlocks the door. The guard’s eyes narrow at him as he leaves.

…

Ten delivers the letter, just as Doyoung said. There is no fanfare, no change in Johnny’s face as he takes the letter from his hands and slips into his pocket. The blankness is a dismissal so uncommon on Johnny’s face—a very clear message that Ten does not need to know.

“What have you been doing since I left?” Ten asks him as they spar in the cold, snow dusting the ground. Every once in awhile his foot slides on some solid piece of dirt, ice masquerading as earth. He recalibrates, steps back, readjusts.

Johnny slices downwards, eyes stormy. So strange an expression on such a familiar face. “Nothing you wouldn’t expect,” he says, breathing heavily.

“I see,” Ten says, and he thinks he may actually be telling the truth.

…

Ten dreams. He dreams of a pulse fading out from beneath his fingertips, of blood that he can never truly wash away. He dreams of the reddest sand, blood-colored and just as liquid. He wonders at the prophetic nature of dreams, wonders if they have any other purpose than to torment his every moment.

He dreams of a familiar face, twisted into obscurity. He keeps dreaming.

_You know what you want._

Ten knows, has always known, will always know. On the morning before the solstice he wakes as early as possible and leaves his room, Jisung sprawled on the other bed. He slips out the doors, walks the silent hallways, opens a single window. It is beginning to snow, and the furtive snowflakes flutter in with the wind. They land on his cloak and glimmer like stars before dissolving into tiny drops of water.

Ten knows what he wants, but first, he must wait for the sun to rise.

…

The voice in his head aligns with that of the lone figure in the rose garden, a heavy white cloak pulled around him. The hood obscures even the slightest of features and Ten can only guess the expression on the man’s face, the color of his eyes.

“How did you know I was here?” Kun asks, voice softer than a dream. He does not turn to look at Ten.

“I didn’t.” Ten reaches out to brush his thumb against a winter rose. “I guessed.”

“Hm.” 

It is snowing. The sky is gray enough to hide any color of sunrise but if Ten looks close enough he can see those same colors reflected in the ice, fragmented.

“Aren’t you…” Ten struggles with the words. The ice makes his lungs go numb. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

Kun turns just enough that Ten can see the outline of his mouth, the shape of his nose. “No, Ten. I’m not.”

Ten’s heart freezes and as Kun leaves the garden he can feel it shatter like glass, hitting the stone walkway in the most beautiful, glittering shards. He wonders if they can ever come back together again, and then wonders if he would want them to.

“Is there a reason why?” Ten asks, offering the last shards to the sky, to a small, desperate hope. 

Kun is already gone. He never even hears Ten’s question.

…

Love is not a vice, but Ten would consider it as one. Love makes you reckless, makes you careless, makes you unaware of everything else. It places a veil over your eyes and no matter how much you try to pull it free it adheres, stubborn. 

Ten is blind in that regard. He always has been. 

Johnny is sitting in the library, watching snow fall outside the windows. Ten sits next to him. 

“Are you hiding something from me?”

Johnny gives him a small, terse smile. “Of course not.”

“You’ve always been a terrible liar.”

A sigh. “You’ve been gone quite a while, Ten. The finer details of things that have occurred are lost to you.”

Ten shifts, looks at the books on the table beside Johnny’s hand. Maps and atlases, covers without names. “What did Doyoung’s note say?”

Reckless, careless, unaware. “He suggested I go to the Borderlands,” he says. “He wants me to investigate personally.”

“Does he not trust me?” Ten asks, picking up one of the books.

“The circle of people Doyoung trusts grows narrower by the minute,” Johnny replies. “It is never personal.”

The conversation ends as abruptly as it started. Johnny stands and walks away and Ten watches him go, eyebrows furrowed, fingers wedged into the cover of a book. He opens it and finds a map of the Northlands, all of it, every village and town marked with color. Some of the names have been crossed out with ink.

Reckless, careless, unaware. 

That evening, right before the sun even dares to set, he sees Johnny enter the lone temple on the hill. The doors open for him like the great dark mouth of a horrible creature, everything featureless from the distance where Ten stands.

Reckless.

…

_What are you thinking?_

Solstice. It is the Winter Solstice and Ten is standing at those great stone steps, the doors to the temple carved in beautiful, sharp circles. He is standing here with only half an idea of what he wants to say or do.

 _I am not thinking,_ Ten replies dimly, climbing the steps. He doesn’t know whether or not to knock, if there is some special protocol for entrance to see the most sacred being in the kingdom. He raises his hand over the stone and the door swings open, unbidden. A predictive move.

Ten stands in the doorway, unable to cross the threshold. Behind him, the dying sunlight paints the white stone the shade of autumn leaves. He takes a deep breath and steps forward, the action so painfully slow he feels like he is wading through molasses.

Oh, it is _cold_ here. The winter chill of the outside pales in comparison to the one trapped inside by the stone. Ten suppresses a shiver as he walks forward, even as the cold threatens to dig a knife right into his skin.

When Ten enters the temple there are five women in the room, the one standing by the door moving in front of him. All of them stare at him with a barely concealed hostility. He notices a shock of bright red hair, a familiar face, but Yeri’s expression is cold and unrecognizable.

"There are no unsanctified weapons allowed in the Seer's presence." Yeri’s voice is the same, but her words are different.

Ten rests his hand on the hilt of his sword. "I'm not giving you my sword."

"Then I must ask you to leave," she says. Her voice is stony and authoritative, and she holds out a hand. Ten doesn't move. 

Slowly, he unsheathes his sword, letting the rays of dimming light that filter in the window bounce along the metal. He hands it to her, hilt first, and she bows her head as she takes it from him. She places it on the floor a couple feet away from the stone stairs leading up to the dais, the metal clanging against the marble floor. He looks past her to the man on the dais, altar framed behind him, his form half hidden by shadows.

The man on the dais stands, the women behind him standing as still as statues. Each wears black from head to toe, inlaid with intricate silver designs, each with a weapon in her hand. Yeri stands to the right of him, eyes facing forward. She does not look at him. Ten looks away from her and towards the stone dais.

Kun has changed.

Kun walks slowly down the stone steps, feet bare against the marble. His simple robes have changed and now he is clothed in white that drapes around him, silver running up and down his chest. His sleeves are sheer and billowing, black marks running along his skin like currents embedded into his flesh. He seems otherworldly, almost inhuman, a different shade of man than the one Ten used to know. The boy they both knew is long gone, and the change that comes between them is tangible, visible, unavoidable.

Before, Ten could have pretended everything was the same. Now, he cannot imagine it.

Kun picks up Ten's sword and balances it on the flat of his palms, stopping before him and looking down. The rose insignia has a faint brown tint to it—Ten could never completely rinse the blood out.

“I believe this is yours,” he says quietly.

“It is,” Ten says.

“Would you like it back?”

Ten frowns at him, at his dark hair and open, honest eyes. “You've changed.”

"So have you." Kun swings the sword experimentally, the action unpracticed and rusty with disuse. "Have the Borderlands been treating you well?"

"I have nightmares," Ten says, and there is no bitterness in the words. Just truth. "I killed a man.”

The horror if it never truly leaves him: that dull murmuring of a life bleeding out into the night. He dreams about it, a burning body accompanied by waves of red sand, lit by stars made of glass. Kun gives him a pensive, golden stare.

"That is how things are." Kun holds the sword in front of him. "That is how things must be."

The sword looks good on him, Ten thinks. It glimmers along the line of his body, blade pressed between his palms, the edge turned so that it seems no thicker than a sheet of paper. Ten kneels and feels the marble floor dig into his knees, cold and unforgiving.

"And how have you been doing?" Ten asks. "Royal Seer?"

Kun closes his eyes briefly, face becoming a mask of deathlike composure.

"It is as it always is." Kun lifts a hand, motioning to the women behind him. "Leave us."

They bow their heads and file out of the temple, Yeri giving Ten a long, distasteful look before she turns to leave.

A moment, and then they are alone.

“I’ve missed you,” Kun says, still holding the sword. 

“You said you weren't glad to see me.”

Kun’s eyes flash. “The two are not mutually exclusive.”

Kun turns away from him and Ten stands.

“I would like my sword back.” His words echo against the stone walls, the marble floor.

“Then take it.” Kun smiles and walks back to the dais, bare feet silent on the stone floor. He kneels on the stone platform, eyes as calm as the eye of a storm. He rests the sword on the altar before him.

Ten hesitates for a moment before stepping forward. Kun’s eyes seem to be shifting in the light, more gold than brown, an almost metallic gleam shining through them.

“You’ve changed.” Kun’s voice is soft. “Where is the Ten I used to know?”

“Dead in the Borderlands.” Ten grabs the hilt of his sword and levels it at Kun’s neck. “You should know that, Seer.”

Kun moves faster than the eye can see and in a second he’s twisted Ten’s wrist so that the sword falls from his hand and into Kun’s outstretched palm. It’s an old trick, one that both of them learned a long, long time ago. Ten traces the way the muscles in Kun’s arm move under the black lines on his skin.

“The tattoos are new.”

“The marks of a Seer,” Kun says, still holding Ten’s wrist. “They change but never fade.”

“Interesting.” Ten pulls Kun closer and in his surprise Kun drops the sword, letting it clatter against the tiles. The sound rings like bells throughout the space.

Silence. Deafening, shattering silence.

“Just as clever as ever,” Kun says slowly, hand cold where Ten has it wrapped in his own. His breathing is slow, measured, but Ten can feel his pulse throbbing in his wrist.

Ten lets go of him and watches the way Kun’s eyes narrow, lips parting as if to speak. There is a heaviness between them, a wanting, but Ten knows this is one thing he cannot have. Has always known it.

Ten steps back and picks his sword off of the floor. He can see his own face reflected in it, his dark hair and dark eyes. He can see Kun behind him, clothed in white and almost ethereal, looking at him as if he is afraid of something.

“You’re playing a game,” Ten says. “You have this palace wrapped up in the palm of your hand.”

“I am only doing what I am supposed to do.”

“What have you been saying?” Ten asks, absently scraping the rose insignia with his finger. “What lies have you been telling?”

Kun is silent. “I’m sorry.” Kun’s voice is a whisper. 

“For what?” Ten asks, sliding the sword into its sheath. “Sending me away? Never telling me the truth? Looking me in the eye and lying?”

Reckless, careless, unaware. Even now, beneath all the anger, he wants Kun back. He wants him to apologize and mean it, not give him another untruth.

“I wish things could be different.” Kun watches him with heavy, sad eyes. “I wish fate did not choose this for us.”

“It has nothing to do with fate,” Ten says bitterly. “We all have the chance to make our own decisions.”

“It always seems that way,” Kun breathes, gazing at something in the distance, past Ten, past what the eye can see. His fingers rest lightly on the stone of the altar. “Doesn’t it?”

Ten turns abruptly and walks back to Kun and before he even truly registers what he is doing he presses his lips to Kun’s, hands brushing the side of his face. Kun rests his hands on Ten’s, gentle as a butterfly’s wings on his skin.

"I don't love you," Kun whispers against his mouth, but he does not move away. "I don't love you."

He sounds like he's trying to convince himself of something that isn't true, his words breathless and soft and clouded with doubt.

 _Don’t lie to me,_ Ten thinks. _Just this once, don’t lie._

"I know," Ten murmurs, pulling back. Kun still has his hands over his, and they are shaking.

Silence. Soft, mindless silence. Ten is reckless, careless, unaware.

“The King suspects you are dishonest,” Kun says carefully. “You must be careful.”

“I didn’t need a Seer to tell me that,” Ten says, interlacing their fingers. He shouldn't do this. He shouldn't _feel_ this. 

“I—” Kun swallows. His eyes burn like a fire. “I am advising you to re-examine those you consider allies.”

“Will you give me a prophecy, Royal Seer?” Ten asks. 

“You don’t want one.” Kun pulls his hands away. “A prophecy is a dangerous thing. You don’t...you don’t need that.”

They are only breaths apart but there is a mile of holy terrain between them, uncrossable. Ten can only stand on one side and peer through the fog. Maybe if he is lucky, he will glimpse a flash of gold.

“I will be holding the Solstice Vigil tonight,” Kun says suddenly. “I will meditate on the fate of this kingdom.”

“Alone?”

“Who else would be with me?” Kun responds, voice containing a brittle type of humor. “I am the only Seer.”

…

“Are you planning a rebellion?” Ten asks Johnny, the night chill eating through his thick gloves. He treats the words with all the care of a bed of thorns.

Johnny freezes, eyes sliding around them at every reveler illuminated in the night. That is enough of an answer for Ten. “You don’t need to concern yourself with such things.”

“Do you think I’ll betray you? You know me better than that.”

There is no love lost in Ten’s heart for the King. He would help Johnny, he would help Taeil, he would help Doyoung if just _one_ of them would be honest with him. It stings, this mistrust. It makes him feel more dishonest than he has ever been.

“No,” Johnny says. “There is nothing for you to know.”

Taeil is standing across the courtyard, talking to the King. He sees them and his eyes slide away, no acknowledgment in his stare, his tight smile.

Ten has found silence to be a more comfortable response than the unkind words he wants to say. “When did I become friends with a liar?”

Johnny shifts uncomfortably. Any stab at his honor is a deep wound indeed. “Ten, I—”

Ten doesn’t hear him. He drifts off into the crowd and then back towards his room, where Jisung is sprawled on his bed with his face pushed into a book. It is very quiet.

“Aren’t you going to join everyone else?” Ten asks, cautiously reaching under his bed. His fingers brush over the familiar outline of a curved blade.

“I don’t think so,” Jisung says. “It’s too cold for me.”

“That doesn’t sound like a Northlander sentiment.” Ten pulls the second knife from its hiding place under his bed. The first is tucked in his coat, right above his heart.

Jisung looks at him, eyebrows raised. “What are you doing?”

Ten unwraps the knife. “Here,” he says, offering the crystalline handle to Jisung. “For you.”

The boy’s eyes widen to huge circles, and he pulls off his glasses. His mouth drops open as he lets Ten place the knife in his hands. 

“It’s beautiful,” he whispers in awe, balancing the glass hilt in his hand. “Where did you get it?”

“It's a Southern Isles blade,” Ten says bluntly. “Take good care of it.”

Jisung’s face is open and honest and maybe Ten is fond of that, the way he has never told him a lie. He’s a sharp blade, hopeful and alone. Ten reaches out and ruffles his hair. 

“Where are you going?” Jisung asks, the curved knife in one hand, book in the other. 

Ten pulls on a thicker pair of gloves. “For a walk.”

…

The fires burn bright and the darkness beyond them is steep. Ten walks away from the crowds, as far as he can, deep into the woods. The cold is like a vise that constricts around his throat, and the further he walks among the trees the more it tightens around him. The ground is all white, the result of days of snowfall. None falls now but its memory lingers in the trees, in the ice. 

Silence. Ten can hear the silence like a song.

Something flutters in the darkness, something that gleams white and silver against the snow, and Ten pauses. He squints into the darkness, straining to see.

“Kun?” he asks cautiously, treading forward over the fallen leaves. “Is that you?”

“I can’t seem to leave you behind,” Kun says, and Ten whirls around to see Kun standing there beneath the trees, white robe brushing over the fallen leaves and broken sticks that jut out of the snow.

“What are you doing here?” Ten asks. “It’s cold.”

“I am trying to see something,” Kun asks. “What are you doing here?”

“Trying not to see.” Ten steps forward. “Are you alright?”

Kun takes a step backward out of the moonlight, but in that brief moment, Ten can clearly see the tears running down his cheeks, shining silver-gold in the night.

“I’m fine,” Kun says quietly, and his voice is barely a whisper.

 _I have known you forever,_ Ten wants to say. _I have known you longer than I have known myself. You cannot hide anything that matters. You cannot tell a mistruth I will not see through eventually._

Instead, Ten looks at him and frowns. “I will be leaving tomorrow morning.”

“Yes.”

Reckless. 

“I just…I would like to say goodbye. I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”

“It may be sooner than you think,” Kun says, and another tear rolls down his cheek. He brushes it away hurriedly, as if he is ashamed.

Careless.

Ten reaches a hand out and Kun hesitates before gently taking it into his own. He lets Ten lead him to the edge of the woods, to the space between the dark trees and the moonlit fields. 

“I don’t love you,” Kun says suddenly, the words an afterthought, an interjection into the silence.

Foolishness is the only trait Ten can rely on with any sort of accuracy. The temptation to do a thing, no matter how wayward, follows him. It hunts him down, makes him desperate and hungry.

_Liar._

“I know.” 

Unaware.

Kun looks at Ten and then leans forward, his lips brushing softly against his cheek. 

Kun says he doesn’t love him. He says it as they kiss among the snow, repeats it with each stuttering breath, his cautious touch. It is written in every line of Kun’s face, every tint of his golden eyes. 

He backs away slowly and then turns his back on Ten completely, walking the long stretch across the white fields by himself.

Ten stands in the darkness, eyes closed, and the memory of Kun’s touch is his only companion.

…

He intends to leave in the morning, but something calls him to stay: a voice that is not his, an ache in his chest that goes deeper than bone. He spends a day wandering around the palace, walking through the fields, trying to remember every small detail as if it were important.

He intends to leave but doesn’t, and it is just another in a long line of mistakes he may or may not make.

“When are you going to come back again?” Jisung asks, sitting on the bed against the wall. He pushes his big, round glasses up over his nose. “Soon?”

Ten simply shrugs. He wishes he knew.

…

There is a small, faded envelope lying on his pillow, and his heart beats slowly as he opens it. Small, dense writing. Splatters of ink.

_Rose garden. After dark._

Ten tears the note into small pieces, shredding it mindlessly between his restless fingers. He opens the window and throws the paper out, white and black but mostly small, and watches them mingle with the frost that covers the ground. It is just beginning to snow.

He opens a palm and snowflakes gently rest on his skin, there and gone. Always there and gone.

...

The Northlands insignia etched into the stone wall around the garden unsettles him. It is just a rose, he thinks, but it holds no comfort for him. It doesn’t mean what he thought it would. Frost covers the paint with a dense fur of ice, but as he reaches out to touch it melts into nothingness.

He hears a rustling behind him and turns, hand already on his sword. He sees a flash of white among the darkness.

“I imagine I won’t see you for a long time,” Kun says. He has a flower in his hands, the blue petals already browning at the edges. It should be too cold for a flower like that to grow, but in Kun’s hands it still clings to that last season of life.

Ten sits on the bench. “I didn’t think you even wanted to see me anymore.” _I didn’t think you cared._

“That’s not true.” Then, quieter: “Things are difficult.”

Ten is tired of the back and forth of Kun’s words, the way he will say one thing but always mean another. Just meaningless song and dance. They are too familiar with each other to truly lie.

“I will be in the Borderlands, and I hope that we do not get attacked,” Ten says, sheathing his sword. He watches his reflection vanish in the metal. “I doubt I will see you next year. Or even the year after that. I’m sure that would please you.”

“It wouldn’t,” Kun says, sitting next to Ten. The roses smell sickly sweet in the nighttime air, the scent so strong Ten can taste it on his tongue. It reminds him of blueberries. The sweetness of a rotten thing.

The difference between the winter roses and the spring roses, Ten realizes, is that one blooms to be beautiful and one blooms to survive, no matter the cost.

Ten’s heart is a traitor. It betrays him at every chance and even though all he feels towards Kun is anger and unhappiness; his heart beats and beats and still follows Kun’s voice. He is drawn to his touch, to his eyes, to his smile. He remembers Kun before he remembers anything else. He knows Kun better than he even knows himself.

A flutter of white and Kun is placing a hand on his forehead, his skin cool and dry. He gives Ten a small, unhappy smile. “I love you, Ten. You know that, right? I love you.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Ten says, and his heart is breaking. “I can’t handle another lie.”

Kun brushes away his hair. “I just wanted to say it. I just wanted you to hear it.” His eyes are fathomless and deep and Ten can see gold burning deep within them, unnaturally beautiful.

He leans over and kisses him on the cheek, just once, the touch brief and soft and sad. He pulls back and Ten looks at him, frowning.

“It’s easier this way,” he says slowly. “I just want you to understand that.”

His eyes glow gold, and his robes flutter in the night wind. It's suddenly cold, too cold: no longer the chill of winter but something older and crueler.

“I feel like you’re in my head,” Ten says. “Sometimes, at least.”

Kun doesn't smile. He is hesitating. “How do you know I’m not?”

“What are you talking about?” Ten asks, muscles tensing. Kun grabs his wrist, hand still on his forehead. “Kun, what—”

“Go to sleep, Ten,” Kun says. He kisses him on the forehead and then suddenly Ten is gone, spiraling, lost in the dark.

…

When Ten wakes he is lying on a bench in the rose garden. He doesn’t remember how he got here, can’t remember anything about last night at all. There is frost on his cloak. He is unbelievably cold. He dimly wonders where Kun is.

He heads back to his room and finds Jisung still asleep, book propped on his chest and his glasses sliding off his face. Ten smiles at that as he shakes the ice out of his clothes and grabs his things.

He leaves within the hour, and as he turns Star away from the castle he sees a flutter of white against the dark tree line of the woods. 

Sun beams through the snow behind him, but all Ten feels is cold.

…

The journey back to the Borderlands seems much shorter than it did before. Maybe it is because Ten doesn't pay attention to the surroundings, the shifts between night and day. He travels single-mindedly, his only thought his destination. There is little to distract him. The voice in his head is oddly silent.

The other knife is wrapped in the Southern Isles flag and buried in his bag. His sword is strapped to his hip, metal eternally cold. His gloves are thick, his cloak thicker. He recounts all the things he has, should have, and finds them all in order.

Ice and snow. The air is dry, and the snow is like dust. There is plenty of time for him to think.

…

Dreaming. Ten is asleep and then suddenly he is standing in the rose garden at the palace. Kun’s stands in front of him, white robes stained with dirt.

Kun is holding a rose with trembling hands. “I should have done this before,” he says, the rose dying in his hands. The decay is rushed, terrifying: Ten watches the rose rot and turn to dust between Kun’s fingers. The garden is familiar but not—the roses tower over them at unnatural heights, their petals bladed like knives. The sky is completely white. “I was weak. I should have—”

“I’m dreaming,” Ten says suddenly. “You aren’t here.”

Kun gives him a smile that is all teeth. “I'm here _,_ Ten. In your dream.”

The voice in his head perfectly overlaps with Kun’s words. It dawns on him then that they are the same voice. He should've realized it sooner, should've seen through his own dim haze of stupidity that there was only ever one figure in his dreams, only ever one voice that he listened to.

“Get out.”

“Ten—”

“I said _get out_ .” Ten grimaces. He looks down and suddenly his feet are covered with a carpet of fallen rose petals. He blinks and they disappear. “You’ve been _manipulating_ me this whole time.”

“No,” Kun breathes. The rose re-blooms in his hand. “Not like this, not in the way you think—”

“ _Get out!_ ” Ten yells. The towering roses tremble above him and Kun’s eyes go straight gold, no pupil or white. Ten is dimly aware of something wet and cold around his ankles, soaking the hems of his pants. “I _hate_ you!”

Sudden movement, so fast that Ten cannot see. The dream twists and shudders as Kun grabs Ten’s head in his hands, fingers digging into his skull. 

“I was weak,” Kun says, gold leaking from the corners of his eyes like tears. “I can't be weak. I can't be weak anymore. Not when it comes to you.”

The roses at Ten’s feet have liquefied into blood. Ten grabs Kun’s wrists and tries to push him away, but they are both frozen together, unable to separate. He should have known. He should have known that he could never rid himself of Kun. 

Ten screams, howls. He can hear someone sobbing into the gray sky, the sound like the dying cry of an animal. 

The world goes white for a second, goes white and then gold, and Ten feels a pulling sensation from deep in his chest, like something is being taken from him. He’s trying to hold onto a fleeting feeling, something ephemeral that is vanishing into the night, something that he cannot name. He sees a face but does not recognize it. Hears a voice but cannot place it.

_A house by the sea._

A fading voice calls out to him, raw, broken. “Wake up, Ten.” 

Ten bolts uprights with his heart pounding, staring up at the starry sky as if it will come down to smother him. He feels hands on him, imagines roses in the sky. He scrambles in the dirt as he stands, half expecting to find a man-shaped pool of blood where he was lying just moments before. 

Nothing. There is nothing. He is alone. There is nothing.

The fire is dying out but the last embers cast just enough light in the darkness for him to see where Star is standing, head bowed to the grass. Ten fumbles in the dead grass for his sword and finds the metal so cold it burns. All he can feel is a strange empty sensation, as if something important has been cut out of his chest or pruned out of his mind.

What was he dreaming about? A voice, perhaps, one he did not recognize. Strange. He pulls his cloak tighter around him and stares up at the sky. The moon is half full, a perfectly cut edge against the black. The icy wind bites into Ten’s exposed hands, his nose, his cheeks.

A dim sense of panic fills him as he tries to catch the last fragments of the dream. A man in white. Something gold. For a moment every voice in his head is as silent as the stars.

Ten closes his eyes for a moment. Breathes deeply. The cold air fills his lungs and roots him in reality.

_Wake up, Ten. What do you see?_

Ten opens his eyes. Exhales. Someone clamps a gloved hand over his mouth with all the speed and efficiency of a viper.

Moments blur together, bleed into ice and snow and solid red haze. Ten throws the stranger off him, a man wearing thick gray clothes, and hits him so hard he goes stumbling across the frozen ground. The stranger does not carry a sword, but a small dagger glints in his palm, all steel. His face is hidden in heavy shadows.

The slice of metal through frozen air becomes a song of its own, a sound so tangible he can almost taste it. The stranger moves so fast he seems inhuman, but if there is anything Ten has learned, it is that anyone can die. Anyone can be killed.

The dagger dances along his cheek, blade sharp. Ten doesn’t even realize he is bleeding until the man is dead, Ten’s sword jutting out of his chest like a grave marker. He wipes at his face with his hand and it comes away red, blood almost black in the moonlight.

Something flutters in the darkness: a flash of white, the absent figure of a distant person. It’s a man, too far away for Ten to make out his features. Unfamiliar. He squints, mouth open to shout, but then the image vanishes. There and gone.

Ten takes a shuddering breath and pulls the stranger closer to the fire. He pulls his sword out of the hollowing cavity in the man’s chest and finds that the rose insignia is once again filled with blood. Dread fills him just the same, as heavy and hot as molten lead.

The man’s face is familiar, but Ten cannot immediately place why. Is he from the Borderlands? Is he…

The palace. That’s where Ten has seen this man. In the palace, coming out of the throne room. A blank, nondescript face. A man with no clear identity. His hands shake as he sheathes his sword, still wet with blood, and pulls the man so close to the fire that the flames lick at his skin. There is no mistaking it now: it is the same man.

The puzzle pieces snap together with all the force of a taut bowstring. This man came to _kill_ him. More likely than not, the King sent him.

_I am advising you to re-examine those you consider allies._

The voice in his head is a stranger to him, the words carried with a weight different from his own. Even now he feels compelled to figure out where they came from, to pull them apart for clues.

Ten pulls the man into the fire. The hungry flames lick at his gray clothes like starving hounds. Burning.

The Borderlands. _The Borderlands._

He pulls his gloves on, grabs Star by the reins, and heads south as quickly as he can.

...

He does not stop: not for weariness, not for hunger, not for anything. It snows. It stops snowing. He whispers apologies to Star as she carries him ever closer to the border, tired. He is only a day or two away, he is only…

Sometimes he sees a figure in white out of the corner of his eye, and every time he does there is an accompanying emptiness. It is as if he has forgotten something essential, vital to the very existence of him. He turns to look at the figure but it always disappears, more dream than reality.

It snows. It stops snowing. It starts snowing again. Oddly enough, none of it ever seems to cling to the ground. The wind blows it upwards and around and all that is left is hard earth, fragments of ice. Ten doesn’t stop.

Someone tried to kill him. Someone who did not trust him because he was too close to a secret. Too close to knowing something he shouldn’t.

The snow falls harder, going from pinpricks of ice to fat, lazy flakes. He holds out a hand and catches one on his glove. It doesn’t melt.

He keeps going. The sky is gray, but he sees orange on the horizon, among the snow. He catches another flake in his hand and it, too, does not melt. Instead, it crumbles into tiny, tiny pieces.

Ten pulls Star to a silent, horrified halt. Not snow on the ground, no. Ash.

Over the hill, the orange turns to red. It turns to black. The cold air stings his nose but he can still smell the deep musk of burning wood. 

He climbs off Star and stands at the top of the hill, feet sinking into the white-gray. In the distance, the Borderlands are burning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for reading!!! <3  
> [king with a glass crown](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6TmGDaK4UCAoV0XsD6PENg?si=A4HXu5YGQIayemhGK_KGNw)  
> hmu on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nastaeyong)


	5. SEER'S INTERLUDE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Ten,_ Kun writes. _Come back home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us; it is a gift._

If there is one thing that Kun will never get used to, it is all the whiteness of the world around him.

White stone. White clothes. The never-ending white when he closes his eyes, intruding on the comforting darkness. How is he supposed to welcome it? How is he supposed to love it, this never-ending absence of life? At least in the darkness, he knows there is something unseen, something to find. 

In the white, he knows there is nothing left for him to find. The world lays itself bare at his feet, but the burden still rests on his shoulders.

…

So this is what he sees in the nothingness: kingdoms rise and fall. He sees mountains of red sand, higher than any hill or palace. He sees rulers with cruel faces, kind faces, crowns that he does not recognize.

The sisters tell him of the palace, of the murmurings of the Council. They tell him, in hushed whispers, that he is the most powerful Seer in a hundred years.

Kun almost laughs at that. _What do I see? What do I see that others do not?_

The youngest sister, a girl with red hair that defies the surrounding blankness, shrugs. It is a simple bit of honesty, one that Kun is grateful for.

This is what Kun sees that the others do not: he sees the face of the one man he wronged, over and over again. This is not the future.

…

“Kun,” the old Seer says, right as he is beginning to fade. “You must _focus_. Focus brings clarity.”

The Seer’s voice is gravelly. He coughs. Kun does not need a vision to know that he is old and dying. The thought does not comfort him in any way.

“I _am_ focusing,” he mumbles, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Nothing’s happening.”

The Seer sits in front of him. “What are you focusing on?”

Here’s the truth: Kun is focusing on all the wrong things. He is focusing on what the sun would feel like if he could go outside right this moment. He is focusing on what he will do later when he sees Ten out on the hills as he comes back from practice. He is focusing on all the important things, but they are only important to him and not the future of the Northlands.

Kun does not answer the Seer, instead tapping his finger against his knee.

“I was young like you,” the Seer says, his voice like two stones grinding together. “I know that it is difficult, but soon I will travel to the otherness and you will have to carry out this duty alone.” He places a hand on Kun’s, stilling his tapping hand. “Do you understand?”

Stillness. Utter blankness, stillness, everything in him frozen like ice over water. He nods slowly, watching the Seer’s eyes gleam copper-bright.

“Focus.”

Kun closes his eyes, but still, he sees nothing. He wonders if he ever will.

…

He still tells himself there must be a mistake, even as he wakes in the middle of the night dripping in sweat, cold and burning. He still tells himself he is not a Seer, even as he sees things in the precious seconds before they happen. He tells himself that if he endures it all just a bit longer, he can go back to the way he was before, everything fine, everything known and safe.

Headaches come and go. Sickness comes and goes. He does not admit the change, does not allow himself to look past the perfect outcome he has always wanted.

He doesn’t allow himself to accept the truth until he is lying in a field with Ten’s arms around him, unable to stop shaking, unable to breathe or speak. He sees images stitch themselves together, pages of a book flipped quickly so that all the illustrations move. He sees death and destruction and he wants it to stop, wants it to go away.

A king with a glass crown.

Ten holds him tightly and does not let go, not until the images have faded and he finally feels his bones settle, feels his lungs inhale again.

This is what Kun sees that the others do not: the future. That is all.

…

The Seer dies in the nighttime, right before the sun peers over the horizon. Kun finds him first, lying in bed with his eyes closed and his hands crossed over his chest. No breath. No movement. Cold, cold, cold.

The sisters run in, eyes wide. They look at him and their expressions change, each dropping to a knee and placing a hand over their hearts. 

_Seer_ , they whisper in unison. _Seer._

...

Kun still dreams. He dreams of not the inevitable future but of the murky past, of possibilities, of roads not traveled.

Sometimes he sees Ten in his dreams. He cannot tell if any of the words they say to each other are real, but he still accepts them as small tokens, gifts that keep him going.

Kun sees the future. This is his curse.

…

On one of his rare trips to the palace, Kun passes a Knight in the courtyard. He’s unfamiliar, plain and unnoticeable, but in the brief moment they pass each other Kun sees blood on the man’s hands, a blade slashing in the night, a scream. Kun stops, looking back as the man continues to walk by.

The man is older, a Knight for many years with the scars on his hands to prove it. He seems undeniably unhappy, and there is a harsh glint in his eyes that puzzles Kun.

 _There is nothing there,_ Kun tells himself, turning away. _You saw nothing of importance._

A week later Yeri tells him of a Knight stripped of honor, charged with murder. Kun does not ask, but he recalls a man with scarred hands and _knows._

…

_Ten,_ Kun writes, hands shaking so hard ink splatters across the paper. _I miss you._

He crosses the words out furiously, the tip of his pen leaving deep grooves in the paper.

_How are you doing? Are you well?_

He crosses these words out too, ink coating his fingers.

 _Ten._ Crossed out. _I love you._ Crossed out. _Come home._ Crossed out.

Kun tears the paper in half, folding the ripped halves into each other. Irene looks at him curiously as he hands the paper to her, the tips of his fingers almost black.

“Was there someone you wanted me to deliver this to?” She asks, holding the paper gingerly in her delicate hands. A blade rests at her hip, blonde hair braided tightly over her shoulder.

Kun rubs at his forehead. “No,” he says. “Burn it.”

…

“Don’t do it,” Kun says softly to the woman standing in the rose garden. “You’ll get caught.”

The woman turns to him with wide eyes and falls to her knees, forehead to the ground. The small green leaf stitched onto her chest signifies her role as a gardener.

“Royal Seer,” she says breathlessly, voice muffled. 

“Don’t do it,” Kun says again, turning away from her. When he looks at the woman’s frayed dress and dirt coated nails all he sees is a bag full of coins, a set of chains, a cold dark cell. “The theft will not go unnoticed.”

“Royal Seer, I apologize,” the woman cries with her forehead pressed to the ground. “Please forgive me, I did not mean—”

“Take heed,” Kuns says quickly, the sight of her crying causing his stomach to turn sideways. “All actions have consequences.”

The woman stumbles to her feet, bowing and walking backward, almost tripping over the stone path. Kun watches her go, a headache settling in the back of his skull. He grimaces.

_All actions have consequences._

…

A gift can be a curse. That is the first thing Kun learns, a lesson he must learn over and over again. A skill can be a detriment. A heart can be a burden. He shows Ten the future sky, red and orange and beautiful, and then burns for three days and three nights. 

Kun thought he could handle pain, had assumed pain was bruised elbows and scabbed knees and shallow cuts. He did not think pain could be like _this_ —never-ending, alive, moving with a mind of its own.

The sisters pin him to the floor. He can no longer differentiate between present and future, can no longer tell night from day. He burns from the inside out, cannot eat or drink, cannot think past the cage he has put himself in. Time slows. Figures move throughout the temple that are not truly there. Yeri tries to give him water, but all he can see is her skeleton, the dust she will eventually become. The dust they will all become.

He screams. He screams and screams and screams, but still the burning does not stop. He hears someone beat their hands on the doors but cannot tell if there is anyone there. He hears someone shout his name but does not know who it is.

Somewhere in the madness he sees Ten. He sees him and then looks away, over and over again. He cannot avoid him forever. He cannot stop whatever is coming. Burning. The world is a funeral pyre once more.

Sometime in those three days, his vision goes completely white. He is blind save for one color—how ironic is it that all he can see is the color he hates the most.

...

  
  


Days pass, months pass, and still Kun feels like he is wearing someone else’s skin. He whispers to the King about the little things he sees, but he is limited to what he sees and what he can share. He is limited to the space that one big secret takes up in his heart.

Seers are cold. Seers are emotionless. Seers are blessed. He is none of these things.

Kun tells the King this: 

“You suspect that someone is unloyal to you,” he says, hands folded in front of him. “If you do not proceed carefully, your throne will no longer belong to you.”

The King thinks for a moment, eyes flashing. “Who is it?”

Kun takes a deep breath, and then he lies. 

“It’s exactly who you think it is,” he says calmly, heart racing with the condemnation. “They can do great harm to you if they remain here.”

“I must send him away,” the King says thoughtfully. His voice rasps along Kun’s nerves. 

“Far away,” Kun says. He nods his head once, and somewhere along his back, a black line sears itself into his skin. 

…

The old Seer once told him this:

“One day you will see something that scares you,” he rasps. He is so close to death that Kun can see it curling around him like a snake. “You will be afraid. Even then, even in that moment when you are most terrified, you can tell no one what you have seen.”

“No one?” Kun asks. The Seer shakes his head.

“No one.” The Seer looks at something in the distance. “If it pertains to the kingdom, tell the King only the barest of what you have seen. Horror and fear inspire rash action. They inspire recklessness.”

Kun doesn’t understand, at least not then.

…

The old Seer tells him this:

“Your job is not to change the future.” His eyes glow copper. “It is just to know it.”

Kun knows. He _knows._

…

A spider weaves a tangled web to live in and finds comfort in the strands. Kun does the same, but in the opposite direction—he finds no comfort in the moving pieces, finds them far too precarious to balance on.

He tells Johnny this:

“When Ten comes back he will not be the same person. He may not be someone you trust.”

Johnny considers the words for a moment, navy blue cloak pooling on the white floor. “I can’t tell him _anything?_ ”

Kun steels himself. “What is more important to you? One man, or your entire kingdom?”

Duty and honor, many above the few. Johnny understands this.

The heavy stone door of the temple shuts behind him with all the weight of a mausoleum door. Kun cries out in surprise as something sears along his wrist. Another black line.

…

“You cannot trust Ten,” Kun tells the girls in the temple. They wear all black, wear their swords and weapons like jewelry. “He is dangerous to all of us.”

They nod. They trust him.

Along his ankle, a black line draws itself into his skin.

...

Ten comes back for the Winter Solstice, and Kun knows the second he walks through the temple doors that they are both doomed. Doomed to the chains that keep them together, doomed just a little but just enough. 

Ten has changed. 

“We all have the chance to make our own decisions,” he says. Kun wants to laugh in his face, wants to ask: _Do you think I chose this? Do you think I had a choice?_

“It always seems that way,” Kun says instead. He sees a flicker of the future peel itself away from Ten, a dim, menacing shadow of things to come.

That night he only dreams of Ten, pain burrowing itself into his heart like it belongs there, like it was supposed to be there all along. The chain that holds them together becomes a shackle around his feet. The memories that once kept him warm now leave him in the most bitter cold. 

He is covered in black lines, each one a lie he has told, a future he has seen. Their origins are lost to him but he touches each one softly, remembers: _this is what I must do. This is what I must be._

He dreams of Ten, of his smile and eyes, of that same smile turned into a frown. The eyes that once glittered now bleed with anger, merciless and ruthless. The boy who once stood by his side is now a man who will only dig himself into his own grave, unaware of the danger.

He dreams of Ten, and he finally understands what he must do.

...

Ten’s lips are white in the moonlight, the winter roses half rotting. Somehow, that is when they smell best. Kun places a hand on his forehead, marveling at how someone can be so warm and alive and still look so sad. “I love you, Ten. You know that, right? I love you.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Ten says, his voice so quiet it might as well be a breath. “I can’t handle another lie.”

 _I’m not lying_ , Kun wants to scream. _I never lied to you._

“I just wanted to say it. I just wanted you to hear it.”

Kun hesitates, warring with himself before leaning over to kiss Ten on the cheek. Betrayal colors Ten’s gaze, and Kun cannot bear to see it.

“It’s easier this way,” he says. “I just want you to understand that.”

_Forgive me forgive me forgive me_

“What are you talking about?” Ten asks, muscles tensing like an animal ready to flee. “Kun, what—”

“Go to sleep, Ten,” he says, grabbing his wrist. He kisses his forehead and eases a small part of his power into Ten’s skin, enough to make his eyes roll back in his head. He goes limp, slumping against the bench. Kun gently lets go of him, taking in the sight of Ten’s troubled expression smoothing itself into one of peaceful sleep. He looks so much younger like this. He looks so much more familiar.

Goodbye is easier like this. It makes sense. 

Kun’s heart leaps into his throat and stays there, making it hard to breathe. He smooths hair away from Ten’s face, choking back the familiar feeling in his lungs. He has to prepare. He must will himself stronger for the terrible thing he must do.

“Goodbye, Ten,” he murmurs. _Forgive me._

…

Kun stands among the trees in the morning light, watching Ten leave. Nothing about him seems to have changed—he moves the same, talks the same, looks the same. He squints at the treeline, no doubt seeing him in the darkness there. Kun sees _him_ and then he sees the dark shadow _behind_ him, something dangerous and foreboding. He has to force himself to look away.

Ten vanishes in the distance, heading over the hills. It is only after he is long gone that Kun allows himself the luxury of tears, slowly burning into his skin. He wipes at them, his hands coming away flecked with gold. Somewhere along his ribs, a black line etches itself into his skin.

_All actions have consequences._

_…_

The old Seer told him this:

“A new king is coming,” he rasps. “Fear will follow him like a cloud. Fate shows me only glimpses, but you…” he inhales, lungs rattling like stones in a jar. “You will know him. You will _make_ him.”

“Will I?”

The Seer’s eyes are copper, dimming like a coin that has been thumbed over a hundred times too many. He does not answer.

…

When Kun gave Ten the future sky, he also gave him some small irredeemable part of himself. They cannot be separated, now. They are bound in ways that only fate can ordain, are tied to each other through all of Kun’s machinations, his truths, his lies.

Kun walks through Ten’s dreams like a traitor. He tastes blood in his mouth and wonders if separation can be successful or painless. 

“I was weak,” Kun says, tears running down his face. They burn like acid. “I can't be weak. I can't be weak anymore. Not when it comes to you.”

Even in fury, Ten’s face makes him ache. He is tired, now. Tired of the tiny whisper in his ear, the ways he must twist the present to shape the future. The shadow of things to come lurks over Ten’s shoulder, midnight black. Everything else is either red or white or roses. Blood and bone.

Kun grabs Ten and in this dream he plunges his hands into the soft silk webbing of his memories, tangling them around his wrists. He pulls them out, one by one, pieces of their time together fluttering like birds. Kun tears them to pieces, gouges himself out of every crevice in Ten’s heart. His hands come away dirty. They are both still dreaming.

Surrounded by the white and the sickening roses, he digs himself out of all the cracks in Ten’s mind. Something stabs along the back of his neck, a pain so blinding he sees not white but red. He thinks he is going to collapse, struggling against the pressure building behind his eyes. He should not be able to do this. This should not be one of his gifts.

A memory flutters between his fingers, but before he can destroy it, the imaginary wind pulls it out of his reach. He hears his own voice, soft and sad. Exactly how Ten has always heard it.

_A house by the sea._

Kun lets him go, watches the dream unravel like thread. He calls out to him one last time, a thick black line curling down his spine. His voice is raw with a scream he has not yet released.

“Wake up, Ten,” he cries, opening his eyes to see white walls, a white floor. Not there, but here. Always, _always_ in the white.

Ten will not come back. He has made sure of it, now.

Kun presses his forehead to the stone and sobs into the silence, his white robes a ready-made burial shroud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM BAAACK and also in quarantine again  
> hmu on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nastaeyong)


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